The Fifa World Cup offers advertisers one of the biggest stages in global sport, allowing brands to showcase their products to billions of television viewers worldwide. Many of these commercials air during the hydration breaks that punctuate matches.
Back home in SA, one advert that has become a familiar feature during those breaks is of a Huawei phone, in which a taxi driver is in an exchange with his passengers.
However, the advert requires serious scrutiny on the falsification of black men.
In the advert, an unfriendly and aggressive young black taxi driver character yells at a black male commuter who’s surrounded by joyful women to speedily cut off soccer match viewing from his mobile phone because his taxi is the last available for the day.
The driver lambasts an easy-going, charming commuter using an Afrikaans dismissive term bosluis - a tick in English. Calling the young man a bosluis, the taxi driver implies that his client is a bloodsucker and trickster, further implying that the women should be wary of him.
At face value, the whole conversation is just hilarious banter. However, a closer look reveals a different picture.
The SA taxi industry is trying hard to forge a good relationship between drivers and commuters, and this advert is not assisting in that regard.
Its marketing message can reinforce the prevalent stereotypes that black taxi drivers are rude and unfriendly towards commuters. The ad therefore paints taxi drivers with the same brush.
I don’t think an international brand like Huawei could endorse such an obnoxious message. Its marketing message about a long-lasting battery should not be devious.
The broadcasters, too, have a responsibility to guard against ads with suspicious messages. It can’t be acceptable that a black man is always portrayed as a suspect - even in the eyes of his own race. - Jerry Tsie, Pretoria
