Wednesday, 30 November 1955
Women can change the world in a day.
Cape Times, Know All About It
Advertising Agency: Lowe Bull, Cape Town, South Africa
Creative Directors: Kirk Gainsford, Alistair Morgan
Art Director: Brian Bainbridge
Copywriter: Simon Lotze
Photographer: Corbis Images
Published: August 2007
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14 Comments
Call me an ignorant, but what is so spetial about that date? sorry, didnt get it
www.degamboa.com
me too
this woman fought for equity.
she was the first african sitting in the same compartment with white people.
before that, they needed to sit in another compartment or even stand.
she thought they did not deserve discrimination.
this is the date she got her right.
it's rosa parks.
and she didn't sit in a different compartment. she sat up front at a time when blacks were supposed to be relegated to the back.
"Supposed" to be relegated to the back? Hmmmm? Thanks for telling me how you really feel.
He phrased it correctly, he prefaced "at a time". You just made yourself look stupid for implying a context that wasn't there.
One day later the the black woman Rosa Parks was arrested because she refused a white passanger her seat. The beginning of the fight against the depression of black people in USA.
I'm going to talk about the ad but before I do...
This was hardly the beginning of the fight for equality for Black Americans. I would imagine the fight began the day some of your white ancestors kidnapped us from Africa and forced us into slavery. So that would have been well over 350 years ago. Hell of a way to build a country. Kill-off all the natives, then kidnap and enslave yet another race to do the heavy lifting for the next 300 years. It's a shame that White Americans don't know anything about Black American history even though they created it. Too bad there wasn't a benevolent and avuncular "George Bush type" around back then to come free us. (But that's a whole nuther conversation for another day.) So I digress... By the way, just how hard would it have been for some of you to Google the date + black woman + bus before showing your ignorance. (lazy white Americans. See above.) But it's not totally your fault since they gloss over this stuff in school. My point is, learn your American history... ALL of it. And now back to your regularly scheduled ads.
I've seen other ads in this campaign and they are fabulous. JFK playing with his kids the day before he was shot, and the twin towers undamaged on Sept 10th. But this one is a bit confusing because it shows Ms. Parks seated in the front of a bus, supposedly a day before she was arrested. The campaign usually shows world BEFORE the event. This shows the aftermath. Ms. Parks didn't in the front section until the next day and there are no photos of the actual event. For this ad to follow the exact logic of the past ads, they should have used a photo of Ms. Parks sitting in the rear of the bus with the white passengers seated at the front. (a photo that probably does not exist.) Obviously this is a staged editorial photo taken well after the events of Dec 1, 1955. But because of the slight tweak on the copy, the slight tweak of the concept continues to work with the previous ads. (That is assuming you have proper knowledge of the historical event. See above.) This ad is cool but as proven by some of your comments, you need the correct historical tools for it to resonate. They're kinda taking liberties with a really, really, really great concept -- but it works. And talk about irony of ironies, this comes from an agency in South Africa of all places.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_parks
teachwhitey@aol.com
Here they are:
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/the_cape_times_jfk
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/the_cape_times_hiroshima
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/the_cape_times_soweto_uprising
It would appear that you didn't learn anything from your ancestors. Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn't have approved of the term "lazy white Americans" either. You can not bemoan racism and then just turn around and be racist yourself. It completely destroys your argument, which is a shame because it would have been a great one if you hadn't just loaded it with hypocrisy.
It is not lazy at all that some people are asking what this ad is about. Rosa Parks is an iconic figure in the American civil rights movement and many people who aren't privy to American Black history would not have heard of her. If anything you should be congratulating the ad for encouraging people to ask who the woman is and why she is so important - its a great story.
Are you so aware of the people involved in the civil rights movements of Britain, France, Portugal? You should be more tolerant of those of us who do not live in the U.S. The American civil rights movement while important is not a struggle unique to the USA.
"And talk about irony of ironies, this comes from an agency in South Africa of all places."
Okay, firstly, that comment insomuch as itself is racist! An ad about race? From the biggest racists of them all? I'm South African - a WHITE South African - who has immigrated to the U.S. in the hope that I may improve my advertising craft. And let me tell you, boet, I have witnessed more racism in your country that eschews oppression and yet practices it on foreign soil. "Lazy white Americans"??? How dare you sit/stand there and spew your vomit about equality - because essentially, given your choice of words, that is exactly what it is. You say Americans need to learn Black history. If you're going to dictate to us uneducated masses, perhaps you should have learned some history about slavery, about how some "slaves" voluntarily climbed on those boats rather than stay in Nigeria and face certain death through famine. You bemoan our ignorance, yet so innocently display yours.
Perhaps you should look to South Africa as an example of a TRUE democracy before you tout the values of one section of American history. Oddly enough, even as a white South African (shock & horror, I'm also male - are you going to start bitching about my white male privilege now?) I knew who Rosa Parks was and what she stood (sic) for. And I didn't study American history in high school - we had to make do with learning the history of not just one country, but two CONTINENTS.
It was a tactical ad for Women's Day in South Africa
Well put IBegYourPardon!
Nice Ad there, it's either raising brows or telling stories.