2020 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Every 23 seconds, a homophobic remark is posted online. Many of them go unchallenged and remain there forever. But when the same hateful words are used in real-world forums, they are more likely to be publicly challenged and removed. To spread awareness of the issue on the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, Rethink worked with the non-profit Fondation Émergence to pull a hundred homophobic and transphobic comments directly from social media, redesigned them as monochromatic typographic posters, and used them on wild posting palisades across Montreal. The posters were swiftly flagged as inappropriate by passersby, and the police ordered an end to the campaign within 20 minutes. The initiative caught the attention of the mainstream press and was widely shared. Organic sharing exceeded Facebook’s average by 500%, and a month after launch, there was an 8% jump in the number of homophic tweets flagged by users.

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: Laurent Breault, Francis Viau, Olivia Baker