2020 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

The non-profit Fondation Émergence, which fights homophobia and transphobia, enraged pedestrians in Montreal when it used real online comments and posted them as wild postings across the city. To bring that concept to radio, Rethink picked three hateful homophobic comments from social media and had an announcer read them on air. The spot came with a warning: the ad would only appear once, not because of some limited-time offering, but because the contents would be deemed inappropriate for the public. The message was swiftly taken down from the air in response to complaints – even though the same comments had been online for more than four years, revealing a double-standard towards online violence.

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 service: Alex Lefebvre, Cendra F. Percy
Sound Engineer: François Bélanger, Studios Apollo
Media: Espace M
Client: Fondation Émergence
Journée internationale contre l’homophobie et la transphobie - Laurent Breault, Francis Viau, Olivia Baker