Black Economic Empowerment progress in the advertising industry in Cape Town: Challenges and benefits

Abstract

Black economic empowerment (BEE) aims to enable black people in South Africa, as legislatively classified, to make a noteworthy contribution to the local economy by irreversibly altering the racial profile of ownership, management echelons and all employment levels of existing and new organisations (SA dti 2004: 4–5). The transformation process in South Africa has been a lengthy and complex one, with the government gradually enacting enabling legislation. The advertising industry has been criticised for its slow empowerment advancement, which led to two parliamentary hearings in the early 2000s to investigate allegations of racism and poor transformation progress. The Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA) has been the main driving force of transformation within the South African advertising industry, but there have been few studies that have effectively investigated transformation and BEE progress within this industry over recent years. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to explore progress made by advertising agencies towards transformation in Cape Town, as well as the challenges and benefits that result from implementing BEE measures. The aforementioned was thoroughly examined by utilising a multiple case study approach and by interviewing the top 12 traditional fullservice advertising agencies in Cape Town.