Just add some Africa
An ad for multinational Orange to grab customers in a Middle Eastern country for some strange reason features a weird narrative of Africans happy that their homes get flooded. What does this have to do with the Middle East? (Or with Africa, for that matter?)
Perhaps all the commercials around the World Cup in South Africa has now made ‘Africa’ such an empty sign that it can just be appropriated and used whenever some feel-good effect is desired. It’s becoming a recipe: take a product, add African kids, bare feet, smiles, sunshine, glamourized poverty – and voila, there you go. Your product will change the world. For the better, of course. Because you care.
-Herman Wasserman
