College of Economic and Management Sciences (UNISA)
Abstract
Black economic empowerment (BEE) aims to enable black peoplein South Africa, as legislatively classified, to make a noteworthycontribution to the local economy by irreversibly altering the racialprofile of ownership, management echelons and all employmentlevels of existing and new organisations (SA dti 2004: 4–5). Thetransformation process in South Africa has been a lengthy andcomplex one, with the government gradually enacting enablinglegislation. The advertising industry has been criticised for its slowempowerment advancement, which led to two parliamentary hearingsin the early 2000s to investigate allegations of racism and poortransformation progress. The Association for Communication andAdvertising (ACA) has been the main driving force of transformationwithin the South African advertising industry, but there have beenfew studies that have effectively investigated transformation and BEEprogress within this industry over recent years. Therefore, the mainobjective of this study was to explore progress made by advertisingagencies towards transformation in Cape Town, as well as thechallenges and benefits that result from implementing BEE measures.The aforementioned was thoroughly examined by utilising a multiplecase study approach and by interviewing the top 12 traditional fullserviceadvertising agencies in Cape Town
