Stereotypes are not hard to find. In fact, they're everywhere. The harder job is making people care enough to notice them. This is where stereotype-smashing campaigns get interesting. The best ones do not simply say “this stereotype is wrong”. They find the mechanism that keeps it alive, then do something culturally useful, distinctive, and fame-worthy with it. Here are seven moves from the Perspective Engine that brands can use to reverse assumptions, expose bias, rewrite scripts, reveal hidden truths and create work people actually talk about.
The seven sub-tactics
- Reverse the Assumption
- Expose the Bias
- Recast Who Belongs
- Rewrite the Cultural Script
- Reveal the Suppressed Truth
- Replace the Representation System
- Make the Old Symbol the Enemy
1. Reverse the Assumption
Take the stereotype and make the opposite belief impossible to ignore.
Assume That I Can, CoorDown, SMALL, 2024
CoorDown tackled a sharper truth than “prejudice is bad”: low expectations become self-fulfilling. Madison Tevlin, an actor with Down syndrome, speaks directly to camera and shows how other people’s assumptions limit what she is offered, taught and allowed to try. The line “Assume That I Can” works because it is not just a slogan. It is a new behaviour instruction. No pity, no soft-focus inclusion film, just a five-word reset with global cut-through.
Citi’s #StareAtGreatness used the same reversal with Paralympic athletes. We are taught not to stare at disabled people, so Citi made staring the correct response to elite sporting greatness. Heineken’s Cheers To All reversed the assumption that beer belongs to men and cocktails to women by showing men and women constantly being served the wrong drink. Saga’s You’re Not Wrong accepted every cliché about over-50s travel, then upgraded each one into something more adventurous, richer and far harder to dismiss.
2. Expose the Bias
Do not tell people they are biased. Build a trap where they reveal it themselves.
Not A Gun - Courageous Conversation, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, 2020
The brief was racial bias and police brutality in America. The execution was a candy bar. In a white person’s hand, it is a candy bar. In a Black person’s hand, the same object becomes a perceived weapon. The campaign made implicit bias visible in a single image: same object, different hand, different assumption. The work then moved beyond advertising into protest signs, yard signs and policy pressure, reportedly driving a 900% increase in implicit bias training inquiries.
U by Kotex’s It Is Not My Period used a social experiment to reveal how assertive women are still dismissed as hormonal. Viewers watched a female prosecutor behave forcefully in a meeting, then were asked which woman was on her period. Women in Games’ #GenderSwap modified game animations so male characters performed the sexualised poses usually assigned to female characters. Heineken’s The Cliché tested whether men would invite their female partners to the Champions League Final, exposing how beer and football culture still treated women as outsiders.
3. Recast Who Belongs
Put the supposedly wrong person in the world they have been excluded from.
The Doll That Chose To Drive, Audi, Proximity, 2017
Audi understood that automotive stereotypes start early. Dolls in one aisle, cars in another. Girls over here, boys over there. So Audi made a Christmas story about a doll who leaves her assigned world, gets behind the wheel of a toy Audi and discovers the freedom of driving. It is sweet enough for Christmas, but sharp enough to challenge parents. The campaign generated more than 20 million views, with 86% organic reach and over 200,000 shares.
Ford Ecuador’s Women Don’t Know Anything About Cars used a provocative sexist line, then disproved it by showing women who shaped automotive history. Pedigree’s pUp Syndrome challenged the Russian assumption that people with Down syndrome could not work by creating roles for them caring for dogs. Foundation Integration’s I’m Not Asking To Be A Firefighter used humour to show that many disabled people are not asking for impossible jobs. They are asking for fair access to ordinary ones.
