Getting to an idea worth fighting for rarely begins from an obvious starting point. Inspired by former Wieden+Kennedy Creative Director Jason Bagley, this series uses provocative questions to mine the Big Ideas That Work Engines for repeatable creative tactics that can help answer them.
This time, we’re asking:
What’s the worst possible thing we could say, and the worst thing we could put on air?
Here are six campaigns that probably weren't thought of by asking this question and a few others, but they could have been...
1. Say the Phrase Nobody Wants Repeated
Take language designed to demean an audience and give the people it targets the power to change what it means.
Go Back to Africa — Black & Abroad, FCB/SIX Toronto, 2019
Few tourism clients would approve a campaign telling prospective travellers to “go back to Africa”. The phrase had long been used as a racist command intended to tell Black people that they did not belong.
Black & Abroad used it anyway.
The campaign found hateful social posts containing the phrase, obscured the surrounding abuse and placed the remaining words over beautiful images of African countries. What had been used as an instruction to leave became an invitation to travel, reconnect and see the continent differently.
The provocation worked because the brand did not simply repeat the insult for attention. It transferred control of the language to the people it had been used against. The worst possible tourism headline became a positive call to explore all 54 African countries.
The question that could have produced it:
What phrase would we never be allowed to use, and who might have the right to reclaim it?
The creative move: Reclaim the Insult as an Invitation, from the Creative Engine → Flaws, Fails & Insults → Cultural Reclamation of Slurs
