This year's Cannes Lions creative data award went Black & Abroad, a company specialising in travel experiences for black people, turned the "Go back to Africa" slur on its head. Each time someone used the phrase on social media, the brand responded with beautiful images of the continent.
Case study summary
• Travel company wanted a new campaign with a positive, political and empowering message to differentiate itself from the crowd.
• ‘Go Back to Africa’ campaign displaced the hate surrounding the racial slur “Go Back To Africa”
• Blacked out hate-fuelled Twitter posts and reframing them against words and images showing the beauty and diversity of all African countries
• Campaign picked up the prestigious Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Creative Data and generated plenty of earned media
The challenge
Black & Abroad, a multi-platform travel & lifestyle company dedicated to redefining world experiences for the modern Black traveller ran a pan-African tourism campaign with a positive, political and empowering message.
The solution
The ‘Go Back to Africa’ campaign reframed the way people think about Africa, by creating a platform that displaces the hate surrounding the racial slur “Go Back To Africa”.
By blacking out hate-fuelled Twitter posts and reframing them against words and images showing the beauty and diversity of all African countries, the brand is putting a positive and uplifting spin on a negative and disparaging narrative.
The results
The campaign picked up the presitgious Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Creative Data and generated plenty of earned media throught the campaign.
“In this digital age, there are a lot of negative data like fake news, privacy violations, or hate messages,” said Creative Data, Jury President, Yasuharu Sasaki, Head of Digital Creative and Executive Creative Director, Dentsu Inc., Japan.
“The Grand Prix winner tackled this issue with a bold and impactful way. It changes negative messages into meaningful contents. It created a new community with the power of data and contributed to the culture.”
GBTA case study from The Work on Vimeo.
