Press Conference- Feed a child campaign

Ogilvy & Mather- ‘WE’RE SORRY’

 

The current challenge in South Africa is the fact that children are starving to death. Every 1 in 10 children suffers from severe malnutrition and some are only lucky enough to live a short life span of 12 months. Many children are physically and mentally underdeveloped due to their level of malnutrition. A child dies every 5 seconds on average.

 

On behalf of the Feed a Child campaign, Ogilvy & Mather, Cape town, created an advert which sparked flames on social media platforms around the globe and angered South Africans in their masses. The advert which caused outrage, depicts a wealthy white woman sitting at a table eating a meal while a little black boy sits at her feet as she feeds him left overs. In other parts of the ad, the child is seen lying over the womans lap while she pets him and feeds him popcorn. Another part of the commercial shows the little boy fetching the newspaper and handing it to the woman in the same manner in which a dog would. The part that caused an outburst of anger, was the part where the boy is seen licking the womans fingers clean.

 

This advert had clearly not taken racial sensitivity into consideration and brought with it, the history of our country. The television commercial was created for the Feed a Child campaign in order to bring attention to the fact that so many of our country's children go to bed hungry and the severe poverty that certain areas of the country, face. The initial aim of the child being portrayed as a dog was to show the public that the average household pet is fed more often than our country's children.

 

Ogilvy & Mather had removed the advert from television as well as from the YouTube site, but struggled to remove it entirely from social media platforms, due to it being shared and retweeted countless times. The brand has come to the conclusion of uploading the link back onto YouTube but this time with an explanation of the message that the advert is aiming at sending across.

 

 Both companies insist that with all the arguments stirring, it has detoured the commercial as their prime objective was to simply raise awareness on behalf of the Feed a Child campaign. The campaign aims to raise funds to feed those children who do fall part and benefit from the charity regardless of their skin colour.