Advertising agency diversity and multiculturalism in television commercials

Abstract

Millions of people in South Africa watch television commercials on a daily basis. Advertising either shapes or reflects society. Either way, the relationship between diversity in advertising agencies and the diversity reflected in the work they produce is important in South Africa. This research is exploratory and qualitative. Four case studies were conducted which entailed four campaigns (two from each agency) and two clients (one per agency). There were ten commercial outputs from the four campaigns. Content analysis was conducted on the commercials with particular reference to the portrayal of age, gender and race. Creative team members from each of the four creative teams were interviewed, as well as other staff from agency and the clients. In total 27 in-depth interviews were conducted. Cross case analysis sought to identify relationships between creative team level diversity and multiculturalism in creative outputs, as well as emerging themes or explanatory factors. This revealed that creative teams’ race and gender diversity appeared to have an influence on the portrayal of race and gender in television commercials. Age in advertising agencies and agency creative outputs was consistently youthful across all four campaigns. Market segmentation and targeting using age, gender and race emerged as a contributory factor. Diversity in creative teams appeared to have an influence on the depiction of diversity in commercials, and larger more diverse teams emerged as a possible mechanism for targeting multicultural audiences.