The fine line between humour and discrimination in advertising: Pineapple Insurance's example

IOL News

2 days ago

Pineapple Insurance was called before the ARB to explain an advert promoting car insurance after a complainant said it was insensitive towards cultures.
Image: File
The advertising watchdog has instructed that a Facebook advertisement by Pineapple Insurance be withdrawn, which compared driving without car insurance to greeting a taxi driver by saying 'dumelang' (in Sesotho).
The Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB), after receiving a complaint from a member of the public about the advertisement, found it to be discriminatory.
The complaint submitted that the advert is full of tribalistic stereotypes and undertones, like the one that assumes that all taxi drivers are Zulus and hate Sotho-speaking people.
The advertiser responded that the advertisement highlights the importance of having car insurance by drawing a relatable, light-hearted analogy from everyday South African life.
It states that the Zulu phrase used translates to 'driving without insurance is like saying dumelang to a taxi driver', intending to illustrate a situation that is out of the norm.
This is much like using a Sotho greeting when the standard expectation or cultural norm with a Zulu-speaking taxi driver is a Zulu greeting, it explained.
The advertiser argued that, as Zulu is the most widely used language in South Africa, it stands to reason that the majority of South African taxi drivers are Zulu-speaking, and to greet them in another language is likely to cause an awkward interaction.
It also explained that taxi drivers in Gauteng are more likely to be Zulu-speaking statistically, and as such, the advertisement makes no assertions or generalisations of cultural groups.
According to the advertiser, the general goal of the campaign is to be more inclusive of all South African groups by including references to everyone's culture in everyone's languages, in a relatable manner.
The ARB directorate noted that South Africans often deal with their differences with humour, which, when it works, can be a positive cultural phenomenon. But it said, the line between a light-hearted joke and discrimination is a challenging one to draw.
The advertiser has argued that greeting a taxi driver (who, it argues, is likely to be a Zulu person) by speaking Sotho would be awkward, and that this is the analogy that it seeks to make.
The directorate, however, does not agree that this is how the hypothetical reasonable consumer would view this advertisement. Driving without insurance is not awkward. It is risky and comes with a great deal of financial and personal risk, it said.