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The families of prominent South African anti-apartheid icons have strongly condemned a Glenlivet whisky campaign, accusing the brand of turning liberation history into a commercial marketing prop.
Released last month, the ad featured an actress viewing portraits of five major women figures—including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela—and drew a parallel between 88-year-old Sophia Williams-De Bruyn’s age during the 1956 march and the 18-year maturation of the whisky.
In a joint statement, the families declared that the bravery, sacrifice, and immense suffering of their relatives had been “commercially exploited.”
The relatives particularly criticised the brand for using alcohol to market political legacies, highlighting the painful history of alcohol as a tool of colonial and apartheid exploitation against Black South Africans.
Williams-De Bruyn confirmed that she never authorised the use of her image or personal history for the campaign.
Although Glenlivet—owned by French spirits giant Pernod Ricard—pulled the ad and issued an apology, the families insisted that deleting the post does not erase the damage and demanded direct engagement with top leadership.
The controversial ad referenced the historic August 9, 1956, protest, where approximately 20,000 women marched to the seat of government in Pretoria to oppose oppressive pass laws restricting movement for Black citizens.
That demonstration stands as one of the largest and most significant resistance movements against the apartheid regime before its ultimate collapse in 1994.
