Our brief here was to develop a hard hitting mixed media campaign for Sussex PCC targeted specifically at men to support behaviour change around sexual harassment and sexual violence.  The campaign needed to raise awareness and shift the focus from women changing their behaviour to men changing theirs - the idea being to help men recognise and question their attitudes and behaviour towards women in daily life and call it out.

The best work starts with a great consumer insight and ours was really simple. Men already know how they should behave. Culture, media, peers, family etc have told them what appropriate behaviour looks like. They already have the answer. It’s just that sometimes they choose not to listen to it.  Our job was to remind them of what they know deep inside and act accordingly. 

The idea we developed was therefore all about placing the emphasis on men’s behaviour rather than placing responsibility on women’s.   It acknowledged that men actually know what’s right and can choose to take the right action. It was educational without being hectoring, provocative without being exploitative. It placed their actions at the heart of the drama - a first person POV idea which forced them to adopt a position vis a vis real life situations.

Produced in collaboration with TM Studios and Liquid Studios, each ad appeared to present a dilemma but actually the questions were always a no-brainer. Each ad appeared to present a dilemma but actually the questions were always a no-brainer. This was designed to reinforce the insight that we actually already know ‘the right thing’ to do. Disguised as a series of scenario based questions, the ‘right thing’ was counterpointed with a clearly inappropriate piece of behaviour. Thus the correct behaviour was smuggled in and the protagonist arrives at it himself and feels smart rather than confronted. 

The budget was tiny, and the media was largely donated.  The campaign ran across Sussex on bus sides, digital outdoor at stations, radio, social, pre-roll, and anywhere else consumers were found - on beermats for instance. Each execution contained a scannable QR code to take you to the website www.safespacesussex.org.uk/do-the-right-thing where visitors could sign up for free bystander intervention training to help identify misogyny and sexual harassment and build necessary confidence to tackle it.  5 further Police forces, including The Met have expressed interest in running the campaign. And the campaign was a finalist in ‘Integrated Campaign of the Year’ at the Roses Awards.