Ayanda Duma heads up Bramley’s first-ever TVC

For South African director Ayanda Duma, stepping into the beauty space was more than just a job, it was a chance to reframe how women of colour are seen, celebrated, and heard. 

Represented by Cape Town production house Robot, Duma helms Bramley Tissue Oil’s inaugural TVC and digital campaign, bringing warmth, authenticity, and a deeply personal lens to the skincare brand’s first foray into broadcast media.

Rather than lean into glossy, high-glam aesthetics, Duma’s vision for Bramley was intentionally intimate and grounded. “We subverted the traditional studio-driven beauty tropes,” she explains. “Instead, we embraced realistic, slice-of-life storytelling that celebrates feminine beauty in all its forms, shades, and silhouettes.”

Working alongside an all-femme team from Brandright, the production drew heavily from personal experience. The result? A campaign that resonates with South African women not just as consumers, but as individuals with rich inner worlds, self-care rituals, and stories worth telling.

For those unfamiliar with Bramley, it’s a South African cosmetics brand beloved for its Magnolia Tissue Oil, designed to moisturise and hydrate skin year-round. The product’s wide appeal, targeting women from their twenties through their fifties, meant the campaign needed to reflect a diversity of experiences and representations.

That diversity emerged naturally during production. Duma recounts a pivotal moment at the wardrobe fitting: “One of our cast members came in and said, ‘Wait! My mom told me I can’t leave without showing you this.’ She pulled out her phone and showed us TikTok screenshots, posts where she’d been plugging Bramley Tissue Oil to her followers for years. That full-circle moment told us we’d found the right women to represent this campaign.”

For Duma, the project’s purpose went far beyond product promotion. “Of course, it’s about selling Bramley’s Magnolia Tissue Oil,” she says, “but we also wanted to remind South African women of colour that it isn’t just okay to be soft and care for yourself, it’s necessary. Our strength can come from how gentle we are with ourselves.”

This emotional resonance was central to the creative approach. Moving away from narratives of resilience and stoicism, Duma wanted to ask, “What if softness is where our power lies?”