2020 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Black & Abroad is a travel brand that creates experiences for Black travellers, many of which were placed at the centre of a tourism campaign promoting Africa’s wild and wonderful sights and scenes. In conjunction with marketing the continent as a desirable destination, Black & Abroad decided to tackle hate speech toward Black people online. Working with FCB/SIX, the brand hijacked the all-too-common “go back to Africa” racial slur as it appeared on social media, turning negative Tweets and Facebook posts into an uplifting call-to- action by rewriting the narrative of what it really looks like to “Go Back To Africa.” The campaign saw the hateful slur being used in hyper-targeted ads, which drove viewers to GoBackToAfrica.com – a hub that used algorithms to turn social posts into campaign assets, at scale. The campaign changed behaviours and perception, created desire for Africa-bound trips and even won the Grand Prix in Creative Data at the 2019 Cannes Lions.

Credits

Client: Black & Abroad, LLC.
Co-Founder, Client: Eric Martin
Co-Founder, Client: Kent Johnson
Chief Creative Officer: Ian Mackenzie
Associate Creative Director: Frederick Nduna
Associate Creative Director: Andrew Bernardi
Designer: Ramon Charles
Copywriter: Curtis Chapman
Account Director: Fraser Jackson
Integrated Producer: Gillian Morrison
Junior Producer: Kristine Lippett
EVP, Strategy: Anna Percy-Dove
Director, Strategy: Paul Hanlon
Strategist: Simran Kaur
Senior Manager, Data Analytics: Andrew Yang
Data Analyst: Abdul Dau
SVP, Head of Data and Technology: Jacob Ciesielski
Product & Technology Solutions: John Sime
Front-End Developer: Heung Lee
President: Andrea Cook
SVP, Director of Global Communications & PR: Melanie Mitchem

Post Production House: Rooster Post Production
Editor, Post-Production: Colin Murdock,
Editor, Post-Production: Jeff Poremba
Assistant Editor, Post-Production: Shane Preston
Executive Producer, Post-Production: Yumi Suyama

Media Agency: Initiative Media

Public Relations: Shannon Stephaniuk - Glossy PR

Music/Sound: Grayson Matthews Audio Design
Music Producer: Mark Domitric
Sound Engineer: Vlad Nikolic
Media Producer: Nicholas Shaw