Why did a BMW billboard at Cape Town International Airport fail?
The BMW Generation Joy campaign which launched in September 2022 is premised on the idea that joy for the next generation is a choice, not just a feeling.
Drawing most of the attention was a billboard showing a black woman assuming a bold stance, backdropped by a landscape featuring the BMW vehicle, the campaign tagline (“We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams”), the campaign hashtag (#generationjoy) and the BMW logo.
The use of the word “ancestors” in the copy – which was struck through – is what sparked and then fuelled the debate online across social media platforms, with critics suggesting this approach erased a belief and cultural identity that forms part of an integral component of black people’s journey towards actualising their dreams.
Key questions raised include “How did this go unnoticed, and who could have possibly signed off on this?” and “Would the same approach have been adopted had words, themes and tropes relating to Christianity been involved?”
Semiotics is an interdisciplinary paradigm that studies signs and symbols regarding the meanings associated with them. In other words, a sign is anything that can convey meaning. So, words can be signs, drawings can be signs, photographs can be signs, and even street signs can be signs.
Signs and sign systems can be looked at in three ways namely: semantics (which refers to the “how” of semiotics and is concerned with the relationship between a signified and signifier – the sign and what it stands in for); syntactics (which refers to structural relations in semiotics by referring to the formal relationship between signs that lets them build into sign systems); and pragmatics (which refers to the relationship of signs to the person reading or understanding that sign).
If semantics is concerned with the relationship between the signifier (in this case the billboard advertisement and the contents thereof) and the signified (which is the meaning that can be drawn from it) we can arrive at two sets of meaning: first, that of individualism, agency and autonomy, which may be what BMW was advocating, and second, that ancestors are not necessarily an integral element of or contributor to black people actualising their dreams.
If syntactics refers to the relationship between the signs and the sign systems, then the syntax meaning of this billboard advertisement can be read as women and black people not needing anyone else to achieve their dreams, especially their ancestors. All they need is themselves.
Lastly, if pragmatics is concerned with how a person reads and understands a sign, we can agree that for black people, this advertisement erases an integral part of their individual and cultural identity that forms part of their history – a history that breathes life into their dreams and aspirations; hence the saying “I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams”.
The importance of diversity and inclusion in agency and marketing teams is highlighted in situations such as the one BMW South Africa and its ad agency now finds themselves in. Because when its need is identified and practical solutions are applied meaningfully to achieve its highest manifestation, many of the intersectional issues relating to marginalised groups in advertising would be prevented from surfacing and making it to the public domain.
Advertisements are created to influence the bottom line and reflect society by challenging the ways we do things. However, this can’t be done outside the context of the people being targeted through acknowledging their history and what matters to them, which is what this brand advertisement failed to do.
A major learning that we must take from this case study is the importance of strength-testing our advertisements with different types of people outside the boardrooms we occupy. We should not try to speak on behalf of people’s histories and cultural identities we don’t fully understand either intentionally or unintentionally.
While the future of advertising is exciting and vibrant, as advertisers we should not forget to check our blind spots to prevent us from repeating history.
Khangelani Dziba is the divisional head of PR & Influencer Partnerships at RAPT Creative.
The big take-out: The ad industry needs to strength-test its work and check its blind spots.