Abstract
M.A. (Strategic Communications)
The overall purpose of this study aimed to uncover how two advertising agencies that operate in South Africa’s landscape have had to adapt their business strategies in response to the MAC Charter. In the history of advertising there have been issues pertaining to racism, gender stereotyping and the telling of a one-sided narrative (Jackson, 2019). These issues have long existed in a global and local context. Due to the nature of advertising having an influence in how society perceives the world around them, it has been noted that the communication messages that are portrayed – the industry should do well in being wholly representative of the diversity that exists within the country (MAC SA, 2016). The adoption and embrace of diversity therefore challenged advertising agencies when in May 2016, the South African department of Trade and Industry issued a code of Good Practice on Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) in South Africa by issued the Marketing and Communications industry with act 53 of 2003 – now commonly known as the MAC Charter (Cinman, 2017). The legislation called for advertising agencies to adhere to certain levels of racial transformation within their leadership and employee structures to give work opportunities to previously disadvantaged racial groups. Taking this into consideration, the study aimed to uncover more about the charter and why it has come into existence in South African advertising agencies. This was done while similarly exploring how the two agencies that differ in size and tenure have had to adapt their business strategies to ensure that they are fully compliant to industry standards in an authentic way. The theoretical framework that guided this study is the emerging strategic communication paradigm as it helps assist in understanding how rapid changes in an external environment are able to be implemented and understood, even in a chaotic context. This framework and its principles set out to demonstrate how they can be applied in practice to ensure agency sustainability in the wake of change.