2020 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Challenge and Goals

In 2003, the non-profit Fondation Émergence, whose mission is to raise awareness around the plight of the LGBT community, founded the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, now observed worldwide. Held annually on May 17, the day is a rallying event that aims to better the situation of LGBTQ2+ people all around the world.

This year, to remind everyone that homophobia and transphobia are still very much present worldwide, the organization decided to tackle cyberhomophobia and cybertransphobia. The objective was to galvanize the public into flagging hate-speech online, reporting it as inappropriate and increase the number of reportings, mostly on social media like Twitter and Facebook. The main challenge for agency Rethink was doing so without the help of the two social media giants.

Insights and Strategy

The main insight stemmed from a troubling statistic: every 23 seconds, a homophobic or transphobic comment is posted online. What is more alarming is that these comments are not acted upon, reported, removed. The issue is getting worse each and every day, and nothing suggests the situation will improve, because Silicon Valley tech companies often fail to remove comments of this nature.

Execution

The idea was to create a social experiment by posting online homophobia and transphobia in the real world to make it unignorable. Rethink created “Brutal Postings,” an OOH campaign consisting of 74 hateful English and French posts from the last six years that remain online to this day. When 74 of those same online posts – many of which have been online for years – began appearing as wild postings in downtown Montreal, a dozen calls were made to police, who had them taken down within 20 minutes. The hope with the campaign is that, one day, everyone will react as strongly online.

A video was created to capture people’s reaction to Fondation Émergence’s social experiment. Some pedestrians stared at the wild postings in shock, while others cursed their existence and demanded that they be taken down. The video became the hero piece to share online, raise awareness of the situation and invite people to take action. This was followed by a national and international organic PR push.

Results

The media coverage helped generate considerable buzz, with video views nearing 1.5 million in less than a week across all platforms. Many notable local celebrities shared the video, including the mayor of Montréal and the Ministry of Justice of Canada. It was announced that a few schools would use the material in classes for prevention and education with kids. Also, notable news outlets such as Radio-Canada/CBC, Journal de Montréal, Huffington Post, Global News, TVA and CKOI (one of the biggest radio stations in Montréal) covered the initiative, allowing for additional reach and awareness of the platform.

Credits

National Creative Directors: Chris Staples, Ian Grais
Creative Director: Nicolas Quintal
Art Director: Maxime Sauté
Copywriter: Xavier Blais
Producer: Marie-Pière Poulin
Strategy: Pascal Routhier
Account services: Alex Lefebvre, Cendra F. Percy
Outreach: Charles Côté, Victor Brunton
Production house: Content:Content - Ronny Lebrun, Raphaëlle Rousseau
Sound engineer: P.O. Rioux
Public relations: TöK Communications - Éric Santerre, Samantha Williams
Client: Fondation Émergence / Journée internationale contre l’homophobie et la transphobie - Laurent Breault, Francis Viau, Olivia Baker