The advert shows scenes of mostly white dads doing fun stuff with their kids to celebrate Father’s Day.
The advert was captioned: “Happy #FathersDay to all amazing dads out there.”
But Twitter users said the campaign was not representative of the country’s demographics and showed that only white men made good fathers.
Political analyst Ryan Cummings tweeted: “Outsurance aside, advertising in insurance industry wholly problematic. White faces sell life insurance, black faces sell funeral policies.”
Outsurance aside, advertising in insurance industry wholly problematic. White faces sell life insurance, black faces sell funeral policies
— Ryan Cummings (@Pol_Sec_Analyst) June 18, 2017
Peter Cronjé, head of marketing at the insurance company, acknowledged that the advert was “demographically inappropriate”, but put the blame on a junior employee for the “unintentional oversight”.
“This advert was created by one of our junior ladies in the social media department and I believe she made an innocent mistake when she created and posted this video,” he said.
“This is the first time we have had trouble with one of our ads because we make sure that they are representative of the country’s demographics,” Cronjé told The Star shortly after removing the campaign from social media.
We apologise for our Father's Day video. It did not appropriately represent SA's demographics. It was an unintentional oversight.
— OUTsurance (@OUTsurance) June 18, 2017
Asked whether he had seen and approved the advert before its publishing, Cronjé said he hadn’t, before adding: “We give our social media employees some leeway to run campaigns in order to empower our young staff.”
However, social activist Yusuf Abramjee alluded to a similar Mother’s Day advert by OUTsurance, where all the women and children in it were white.
Calling it a “disgrace”, he said: “If I was an OUTsurance client, I would seriously reconsider my business with them as a person of colour.”