South African Creatives Face the Flux & Do It Anyway

Change is a fundamental and inevitable part of any industry, but few have had to deal with as much change as the South African advertising scene in recent years. It has been 23 years since apartheid ended in the country, and the political and economic situation has been uncertain ever since. On top of this, as elsewhere in the world, the local industry is restructuring to meet the modern demands of smaller budgets, shorter deadlines and more varied platforms. 

Some of the resulting reforms have been positive. The closure of South Africa’s largest production company, Velocity Films, earlier this year has spurred the launch of various new projects and impacted the local production scene, paving the way for new shops to open. 

Equality-promoting initiatives, such as Free The Bid and Open Chair, have also emerged to tackle age-old issues around race and gender. However, despite these positive developments in the industry’s employment and working practices, creative output is still challenged, possibly due to the country’s enduring political and economic instability. There is little faith in the country’s president, Jacob Zuma – his leadership of the ANC is up for election in December. Plus, with the Rand still weak and the economy possibly facing a return to recession, the situation is promoting pessimism among long-time denizens of the industry. But there are new, more optimistic voices emerging, and hopefully young blood can lead the charge towards restoring global and national faith in South Africa’s creativity. 

South Africa won a total of 26 Lions at Cannes 2017, which included three Grands Prix in Radio, historically its strongest medium. FCB’s creative director, Open Chair ambassador and Loeries chairperson, Suhana Gordhan, sees this result as telling in terms of what’s going on internally: “As a country, we’re struggling to find our voice. The country is going through changes and the work is a reflection of where we are. Our industry is in a bit of a crisis because we’re under pressure, our budgets are being cut and we still have to produce work on demand. We’re all holding on tightly and trying to make our day-to-day work, while also creating pieces that stand out and cut through to who we are. That’s the daily struggle: trying to find our voices in a way that’s authentic and that people can look up to again.” 

Enough with the moaning already

A number of factors have forced the industry to evolve: smaller budgets and tighter deadlines, plus developments in digital and improved internet speeds. “The shift to more online content has happened and we’re [already] doing it, whereas two years ago, we were [just] anticipating it,” says Giant Films co-founder/managing partner Cindy Gabriel. 

Sharing a similar time zone with Europe and with English as the dominant language in the media, South Africa could become a viable competitor with Europe; it just needs a boost of self-confidence. “We have to realise that we can do great work now for much less money,” says Groundglass founder/EP Janette de Villiers. “We don’t need a lot of gear and a big crew to pull off clever ideas and I hate people moaning about budgets. We need to come up with ideas that don’t cost the Earth. Some of the best work I’ve seen has been made on the sniff of an oily rag; it’s a matter of agencies and production companies being more agile, getting over having to work old-school. We’ve had all this crazy stuff going on for years, so [let’s] just get on with it.”

Absolut-ly fabulous ambition

So what’s holding South Africa back? Grey Africa’s CCO, Fran Luckin, notes, “The political uncertainty with regard to the presidential succession is making a lot of clients nervous about investing. Many clients are sitting on their budgets waiting to see what happens at the ANC’s December conference, where the next party leader will be elected.”

However, Ryan McManus, ECD at Native VML, thinks clients shouldn’t be blamed – it’s creatives who need to be bolder. “We’re not experimenting enough as an industry,” he says. “There’s a lot of work being decided by the guys on the financial side, but it’s the creatively-led clients that do better.” Native VML’s all-encompassing work for Absolut is a good example of new ways of working and suggests what the future could look like. The agency adopted a 360⁰ approach to the vodka brand’s One Source campaign in 2016, and its recently-launched follow-up, One Source Live (below), creating a music video, documentary series and EP, defying the traditional TVC format. This ambitious approach paid off, earning them gold and silver Lions for Entertainment; a silver in Entertainment for Music; and a bronze Media Lion. “We have to scrap for opportunities to make them work,” says McManus. “There’s so much talent, so many great locations for shooting and amazing African stories that nobody’s telling. We need to tap into that as much as possible to tell stories that are really from here… Brands should be playing a far bigger role. Maybe I’m impatient but [advertising here] feels quite slow to change. Being part of a [global] network, you see what the guys are doing elsewhere and how the market is moving. As creatives in the industry, we should be driving that change, not plugging into the back of it.” 

Those changing the landscape locally with fresh ideas are gaining the most respect. Design agency TBWA/GRID is continually heralded; CCO Nathan Reddy was named Loeries Creative Hall of Fame inductee 2017 following the company’s redesign of Johannesburg restaurant, Marble. The Meat Made Luxury revamp created an integrated aesthetic for the brand, with notable attention to detail, such as sweets for the bar countertops that looked like real marbles. 

South Africa – the place to BEE

One area where change could speed up is the tackling of gender and racial diversity in employment. Quota schemes like Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) have been in place for almost 15 years, however many South Africans, like FORT CEO Shukri Toefy, believe “they exist [only] to level the playing fields, economically-speaking.” The independently-owned content agency is doing its best to challenge and disrupt the traditional advertising model, by offering stiff competition with their diverse perspective and commitment to racial equality. 

Quotas may get more talent through the door, incentivising agencies with access to higher tier clients, but they have their faults. “BEE quotas are effective if structured and executed properly with the mindset of genuinely empowering and not just engaging on a superficial level,” says Nosipho Maketo van den Bragt, owner and MD of VFX house, Chocolate Tribe. However, this requires infrastructural investment and a genuine understanding of the value that black talent will bring – something that has been lacking. 

Quotas alone won’t help, attitudes need to change, too. “There’s this perception that if you’re black, you’re not good,” says Toefy. “It’s about slowly breaking that down one award at a time.” You need to develop black talent before you can hire it, and agencies are now partnering with schools or, like FORT, offering their own in-house training, to balance out the racial skill gap. FORT also offers a profit-share scheme to incentivise young talent to join the company.

But there are other obstacles; despite the death of apartheid, many black people still live out in the townships. “Hiring a black person is much harder,” says FORT co-CCO Amr Singh. “Most of the time, they need to take public transport. We don’t have a tube system in South Africa, so some people have to wake up at 4.30am to get in for 9am. And there’s no night bus, so it means Uber-ing them home, which will cost you. Whereas a white worker might have a car and can drive home at 11pm when the work’s done.”

 “The daily struggle… trying to fi nd our voices in a way that’s authentic and that people can look up to again."

Surfing the waves of chaos

In a market made up of networks, cushioned by their global counterparts, the odds seem stacked against start-up creators, yet it’s exactly their fresh, forward-thinking approaches that the nation’s advertising industry needs right now. As the old adage goes, “Old ways won’t open new doors.” Changes are necessary and, for South Africa, hopefully they will be for the best. As Giant Films director Sam Coleman puts it, “South Africa feels like it’s constantly teetering on the brink of chaos.” It’s all about learning to enjoy the ride.