Color of Change
CW: Austin Pak & Anabelle Custodio
AD: Jean Elliot & Janine Fernandez
Account Lead: Sarah Koestler & Michelle Blahnik
Strategist: Raven Sulaimon & Pamela Herring
Project Manager: Virginia Gil
My role: Co-concepting, Copy For All Aspects of the Campaign
*Spec Work for Indoor Recess Ad Competition
Problem: When hate crimes occur on campus, universities are slow to punish perpetrators and strengthen anti-harassment policies to protect traditionally marginalized students.
Insight: University administrations typically don’t take action against hate speech and harassment unless their reputation is on the line, or if the issue gets a lot of media attention.
Idea: Create a sarcastic and witty social campaign that calls out universities’ lack of efforts to protect their students from hate speech and harassment.
with this campaign, we want to give a big middle finger to all of the college campuses out there that don’t even do the bare minimum to protect their students from harassment and hate speech.
Let’s give students the opportunity to call universities out on their bullsh*t.
#Thanksalot Social campaign
To kick off our social media campaign, we will start by targeting university students with social media ads that invite them to share their stories of racism and harassment on their campuses through Color of Change’s website. Once students create their template, they will also be asked for their permission to share their stories and posts on the official Color of Change social media accounts. We want to create a social media storm that universities will have no choice but to address, leading them to make changes to their anti-harassment policies on their campuses.
See example posts below:
*IG Story Template Example
thank you cards
In addition to creating custom graphics for social media, students can also choose to send a physical “Thank You” card to their university’s administrators. Outside, the physical card appears to be a warm, inviting “Thank You” note, but inside, is a cold, hard message from students about acts of harassment and racism that they’ve experienced on campus. Creating this physical manifestation forces administrators to stop ignoring the problem and address their campus issues head-on.
Out of home ads
Our OOH campaign will utilize the same tone as our social media campaign. The ads will feature students’ stories and with their approval, their words will be on billboards, bus stop ads, and subway posters all over college towns, campuses, and cities, bringing more attention to the #ThanksALot campaign.
We want to put our message in the public eye so we can get media coverage and pressure universities into taking action on their campuses.
Google Ad Extension
When someone searches their university or the word, “change”, a banner ad version of our OOH ads will appear.
We want to make sure that universities won’t be able to hide behind their hollow statements and perfectly designed websites by showing the reality that many college students face on their campuses with our ads. These ads will direct to the Color of Change website.
