Babalo Ndenze
Political Bureau
FIRST National Bank (FNB) has come out in defence of an advertising campaign that has drawn the anger of the ANC and its allies and been branded a “treacherous attack”.
The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and SACP joined the ANC in slamming the campaign, with the league saying it was “deeply angered and disappointed” by the bank’s “You can help” brand campaign, launched last week with a series of online videos in which South African youths share their views about the country.
ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the party was “appalled” by the campaign in which the ANC, its leadership and the government were “under attack” in a “commercial masqueraded as youth views”.
In one of the videos a participant says: “Stop voting for the same government in hopes for change – instead, change your hopes to a government that has the same hopes as us.”
On Sunday, youth league spokeswoman Khusela Sangoni-Khawe said that FNB had failed in trying to “recreate an Arab Spring of some sort in South Africa”. She said it “uses children to make unproven claims of a government rife with corruption”.
“We call on South Africans to close ranks against what is a treacherous attack on our country,” she said.
Mthembu said the campaign was an “undisguised political statement that makes random and untested accusations against our government in the name of discourse”.
“While we believe people are entitled to their views, we don’t accept that young kids should be used as proxies to articulate political views espoused as in the case of the FNB advertisement.”
Mthembu said the ANC leadership would “engage FNB management to seek a better understanding of the advertisement and its intended objectives”.
This is not the first time that the bank has fallen foul of the government of the day, having suspended a multimillion-rand anti-crime advertising campaign in 2007 under pressure from then-president Thabo Mbeki’s government. That campaign invited the public to write to Mbeki about their experiences of crime.
‘Misinterpretation’
FNB chief marketing officer Bernice Samuels said the bank was “disappointed” with the youth league’s response to the campaign. She said FNB believed the league’s statement was a “misinterpretation” of the campaign’s intent.
“We also strongly deny that this initiative is a ‘treacherous act’ against the government or the country. Our only intention with the campaign is to provide a platform through which we believe, as South Africans, we can use the power of help to make a positive difference in building a stronger, unified, values-based nation,” said Samuels.
The bank also posted links to one of its projects, which reflects the views of 1 360 “opinion-leading young South Africans” from various backgrounds.
The survey findings state how “70 percent of young South Africans conveyed a sense of hope about the country’s future, regardless of the criticisms stacked against it”.
“We undertook this exercise as we strongly believe that the children of South Africa have an important voice and are critical to the country’s future success. Every interview was unscripted and uncensored – they are very much ‘from the heart’ of each child speaking,” said Samuels.
The bank said individuals across age groups from Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape had responded to the survey and expressed their opinions on numerous issues. “These responses were captured through video recordings and written questionnaires or essays, and represent opinions elicited through prompted or unprompted formats,” read the report.
Samuels said it was not FNB’s intention to “attack” the government or the ANC but “to call on every South African, in a practical and meaningful way, to play their part in helping to create a better South Africa”.
The Young Communist League of SA also hit out at the bank, saying it was “utterly disgusted” by the “veiled” attack on the country.
“These videos are nothing but part of a campaign to derail the second phase of our transition towards the realisation of the vision of our national democratic revolution as eloquently captured in the Freedom Charter,” said league spokesman Khaya Xaba.
The SACP said it was “incensed by the latest ‘regime change’ agitation in the form of an advert” by the bank.
Spokesman Malesela Maleka said the advert was “nothing but propaganda aimed at playing on emotions of our people”.