Black empowerment and affirmative action in ad agencies have come under fire for being inadequate, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy
The R3-billion advertising industry is facing its biggest challenge in the new South Africa — it has to embrace not only affirmative action, but also real black empowerment.
Managing director of Lintas ad agency Lew Slade says black empowerment is happening, but it’s not happening fast enough. Although, he adds, it is happening as fast as it possibly can “under the circumstances”.
The circumstances he refers to include time spent training black candidates and equipping them with the necessary skills to operate efficiently in the industry.
The training cannot be speeded up in a bid to cut corners, argue some advertising agency heads — although others charge that the quality of training is mediocre and a mechanism to keep black people from achieving their “rightful place” on executive boards.
Eurospace managing director Josh Dovey agrees with Slade. The key issue for the industry’s affirmative action candidates is training, a time-consuming exercise which involves great effort, he says.
“With the necessary training, candidates will be able to move through the ranks. For me, it’s not so much a question of race as about training and gathering the necessary expertise in order to move up.”
Dovey and Slade regard affirmative action training as crucial and they seem to represent the majority sentiment in the industry: moving through the ranks is the most acceptable means of promotion.
Not so, says Dennis Mashabela, managing director of Mashabela Leo Burnett. Mashabela was formerly head of Mashabela Burrows and Company, until Sonnenberg Murphy Leo Burnett formed an alliance with the black agency, integrating it into the Leo Burnett group with an option to buy shares in the group.
“Attitudes have to change,” he says. “The advertising industry at the moment is like the last bastion of white privilege. It’s pathetic.”
Mashabela argues that black candidates find themselves working in a Eurocentric environment where white shareholders and key players have no idea of black culture and, therefore, can neither respect nor accept the creativity which flows from a township upbringing.
“The situation in the industry with regard to black empowerment is a disgrace. Working oneself up through the ranks is difficult if your colleagues are resentful of you,” he says.
Mashabela says changes within advertising agencies are often “not meaningful” as black candidates are taken into the agency and forgotten. “Often these mainstream agencies think that once they have got a couple of black candidates on to their team, they have done their share of affirmative action. This I find disgusting.”
He questions the sincerity of owners who have accepted a need for their ad agencies to be more representative of the country’s demographics. “It makes good business sense to have black creative directors and black people in key directors’ positions with the bulk consumer market being black,” he says.
And, he adds, the promotion of black people in agencies is a bid to secure more government contracts, among other things.
Mashabela also questions the quality of training offered to black students, saying he encounters many frustrated black trainees and ad agency recruits. “These youngsters often feel that agency-owners expect them to be happy with the opportunities provided to them and not to grumble.
“There is a feeling of sit down, look good, but don’t ruffle any feathers and definitely don’t attempt to change the agency’s direction.”
Many agency chief executive officers disagree with Mashabela, saying his arguments are “emotional”.
Group managing director of The Media Shop, Dick Reed, says it’s unfair to make sweeping statements and generalisations across the industry. He argues that agencies cannot all be painted with same brush, as most welcome new talent.
A lot of training is taking place, he says, but it is his perception that “advertising merit” and neither gender, nor skin colour, is the criterion for succeeding in the industry.
“It’s true there are few black directors, but it’s still early days in the scheme of things. There is a lot of growth taking place in the industry and the doors are always open for potential black media directors to come through, work hard and show their ability,” he says.
Lindsay Smithers-FCB managing director Harry Herber brings up the difference — a clear difference, he says — between affirmative action and real black empowerment. Training falls under the affirmative action recipe, and there’s a great deal of it in the industry. Black empowerment, on the other hand, is fairly non-existent in the industry.
“Black empowerment is a matter of who owns the business and who has shareholding. In terms of the industry, there is very little empowerment taking place. At our agencies, like others, we recognise the need for black empowerment and are working towards that at a frenetic pace.”
Lindsay Smithers-FCB is planning to conclude a major deal with a black partner in two months, but details are being kept under wraps.
“Affirmative action and black empowerment go hand- in-hand and can only work if done simultaneously,” he says.
Black advertising agency Herdbouys’s executive chairman Peter Vundla says black empowerment is not happening at all in the advertising industry. He cites only one example of black empowerment: his agency.
Saatchi & Saatchi, Klerck and Barret executive director Tso Modise says it was a long haul before he and his partners acquired a 26% stake in Saatchi & Saatchi. They raised some of the money themselves and borrowed the balance from the agency. Two years down the line, they have met their financial obligations to the company.
They have also ensured the agency is more representative of the country’s population by introducing a black creative team, launching an affirmative action recruitment drive and introducing a policy where black personnel replace white staff members when the latter resign, and the staff complement is 60% to 40% in favour of females.
Modise says black candidates should not be placed in positions without being fully equipped to shoulder the responsibilities which the position entails. “If black candidates are put in place just to show up some black faces it is pointless, as the industry will ultimately fall apart without the necessary expertise,” he says.
He adds that there is no desire by the consortium to convert Saatchi & Saatchi into a black agency. They are rather interested in it becoming representative of all South Africans.
Hunt Lascaris TBWA group managing director Reg Lascaris says black empowerment is not happening fast enough, but people are being trained as fast as possible.
“There is a fast-tracking course within our agency which aims to arm people with the necessary skills. As long as the fast-tracking is done properly, people will benefit all round.”
Lascaris adds that there is a hard push within the industry to have affirmative action in place, but the argument that black people are working in a Eurocentric environment is inaccurate. “Within local and international agencies, whether we are working in a Eurocentric or Afrocentric environment, we all work guided under a set of advertising principles. What is of importance, is that skills are acquired and people work guided under the same principles. “
How much black empowerment is there in the industry? Since advertising agencies are not listed, it is hard to gauge the percentage of black shareholders.
However, one media analyst argues that with a shortage of skills, black directors placed in powerful positions without having come up through the ranks will bring no extra skills to the industry.
Also, the purchasing of stakes in major advertising agencies without the necessary expertise is merely a quick fix and will mean nothing in the long term.
Modise, however, says with the financial help of major advertising firms, real black empowerment can take place and black shareholders can play an important role in ensuring that meaningful changes take place in an industry which is still predominantly white.