Aussies urged to 'do something' about disrespectful behaviour towards women in interactive campaign
Australians are being encouraged to speak up and do something when they see women being disrespected in a campaign for violence prevention.
Our Watch campaigns against disrespectful behaviour in innovative campaign via Thinkerbell
The campaign, ‘Doing nothing does harm’, aims to help people to identify disrespectful behaviours towards women and provide them with the confidence to do something about it.
Created by Australia's national body for the prevention of violence against women, Our Watch, and Thinkerbell, the campaign includes a series of interactive videos highlighting the common disrespectful behaviours such as sexist jokes, objectifying women and off-colour comments.
The videos encourage viewers to “do something” by interacting with the content and following on-screen prompts. Viewers who interact with the ad will be ‘de-targeted’ and not receive the ad again, however, those who do not respond will continue to be targeted, and see the ad – and sexist behaviour - again and again.
The videos are supported by an interactive website which provides instructions for how people can respond to situations.
The campaign is the result of research which found four in five Australians want guidance on how to respond to disrespectful behaviour and take positive action. Currently, only 14% of Australians are likely to act.
Natasha Stott Despoja AM, chair of Our Watch, said “We know from our research that disrespectful attitudes and behaviours are part of the culture that can drive violence against women. When everyday signs of disrespect go unchallenged, it is normalised, excused and tolerated.”
Adam Ferrier, consumer psychologist at Thinkerbell, said “We wanted to create a campaign that mimics real life. This work both captures the awkwardness, and harm, that occurs when people choose to do nothing, however, it also rewards people for taking action – in that they will witness less sexist behaviour if they do.”
Thinkerbell worked with Google to develop the de-targeting technology which it claims is a creative world first on YouTube.
