Commentary
Insurance company Outsurance has come under fire after posting a Father's Day advert featuring all white dads, apart from one, on Twitter. The ad captures fun activities and cherished moments between fathers and their children, and contrary to its "Happy #Fathersday to ALL amazing dads out there" caption, the video seemed to have everything but black fathers.
Outsurance has since taken the video down after an outpouring of rage from social media users who slammed the video as not being reflective of the country's demographic, with the insinuation that black men are not good fathers.
Outsurance has since blamed the video on a "junior employee", calling it an "innocent mistake" and an "unintentional oversight". Peter Cronjé, head of marketing, denied having seen or approved the ad before it went out, stating that they liked to give their social media staff leeway to run campaigns in order to empower their young staff.
Of course this mysterious "junior employee" remains anonymous and also why the ad wasn't run by a more senior member of staff remains a mystery.
This is however not Outsurance's first ad that has caused offence towards black South Africans.
A previous ad featured a character called Doloris -- a white man who has his face painted black, complete with a wig of braids and dressed in drag to emulate a black woman -- filled our screens for years. Millions of South Africans watched as this man, with his fake black accent and exaggerated personality, pretended to be black.
This was before the rise of power in social media commentary.
This puts into question Cronje's comment: "This is the first time we have had trouble with one of our ads because we make sure that they are representative of the country's demographics''.
Is Outsurance so allergic to hiring black actors for their ads that they would rather paint a white man's face black so he can pretend to be black or, as per their recent ad, rather not have one present at all? All excuses considered, excluding the majority of the country's population from an ad dedicated to "all fathers out there" is quite a big "unintentional oversight" to make.