Fair and Open Society

Agency: Dentsu Impact
Client: Paytm /  Market: India

To honor International Women’s Day, we worked with our client Paytm to conduct a social experiment to understand gender disparity in the context of financial literacy in India. The work also aligned with our own commitment to gender equality, as detailed in our Social Impact strategy.

The Divide - A Social Experiment was an innovative and mould-breaking campaign that urged the audience to separate gender from finance. A group of men and women were asked a series of questions, taking a step forward or backwards depending on their answers. The questions gradually ramped up to cover finance, asking whether participants had ever taken out an insurance policy or manged their own earnings.

After all the questions were asked a huge gap had grown between men and women, which clearly showed the difference in the financial literacy and independence between the genders. Many of the participants, especially the women, were shocked at the disparities that had been revealed.

“We wanted men and women both to realize the importance of teaching and learning matters related to money,” said Anupama Ramaswamy, Managing Partner, and National Creative Director, Dentsu Impact.

The campaign was followed by 4.1 million people on Instagram, 3.1 million on Facebook and one million on Twitter, as well as 294,000 subscribers on YouTube.

 Agency: iProspect, Carat, BW
Client: Starbucks, Red Pacto Global Chile (UN Global Compact, Chile) / Market: Chile

Women and their voices are still under-represented in many spheres. The global percentage of media space dedicated to female issues does not exceed 25%. It is vital for gender equality that we continue to promote female empowerment – and it makes sense that women should be writing about issues that matter to women. In October 2021, we partnered with Starbucks in Chile to help launch a new publication to offer more women a space to put pen to paper. Woman Times, the country’s first newspaper aimed at a female readership, was the result. Each month, Starbucks opens one of its stores as a newsroom, inviting a team of female journalists to produce the next issue of the newspaper, which is available in print and online.

Some of the issues we’ve covered include women in leadership, violence against women, feminism and female allies. The newspaper focuses on women’s rights and equality in Chile, and offers visibility to minority groups fighting for gender equality.

With a 92% female readership, the newspaper is also followed by an impressive group of politicians, influencers and business executives across Chile. Woman Times was an unexpected new media channel, but the traditional news media in Chile has since recognised the need for the publication to help reverse the gender gap in the media. Editors have been invited to more than 45 events in just five months since initial publication to present the newspaper. And most importantly we increased the amount of media dedicated to women by 5%.

Due to the success of the publication, we will continue partnering with Starbucks to launch Woman Times in Uruguay and Argentina.

Agency: dentsu
Client: dentsu / Market: Italy

Every year more and more brands support diversity in Pride. It is not only the right thing to do, it is what consumers expect. Participated in Pride also offers an opportunity for radical collaboration across industry and sectors. That’s why in 2021 we curated a unique collection of global brands to take part in a two-week pride campaign, Rainbow Brands, supporting LGBTQ+ communities in Italy. Bringing these ten brands together made them into an integrated symbol of Pride.

The concept of the campaign was a multi-brand rainbow to honor the rainbow flag that represents the LGBTQ+ communities. KFC, Very Mobile, Sky, Plasmon, Pringles, Wind Tre, Heinz, Nestlé, Fastweb and Engie all took part in this innovative campaign to challenge perceptions and promote equality. Each brand was highlighted using a colour from the flag and unified under a simple message: “Diversity makes everything more beautiful, even in an ad.” The campaign brought splashes of colours to both print and outdoor media, including an eye-catching feature at a train station in Milan, where it reached more than 1,365,000 people over seven days.

In the national newspaper, Corriere della Sera, we boldly placed a campaign advertisement which urged lawmakers to push back on anti-homophobic laws directly under a story about the Vatican. Press coverage in two publications on 23 and 24 June reached 634,881 total readers, while influencer marketing yielded more than 400,000 impressions for 30 pieces of content.

Agency: Isobar
Client: Somos Fena / Market: Argentina

In 2021 every 22 hours saw a woman murdered in Argentina. To directly address this shocking statistic, dentsu Argentina created a campaign encouraging songwriters to consider how the messages in their lyrics could combat violence against women. “Hits Que Duelen” (Hits that Hurt) addresses sexist and misogynistic language in music, with a focus on the voices we hear and amplify. Isobar created the campaign for FENA, a non-profit organisation that addresses issues around symbolic violence in society from a gender perspective.

“There are songs that we sing without thinking about what they say and the violence of their words,” says Matías Martty, Creative Director of Isobar Argentina.

As part of International Women’s Day, FENA took the lyrics of popular songs and used them to write fake news stories about gender-based violence, publishing these stories in different national media.

The campaign triggered surprise and debate, with FENA’s reach on social media growing by 300%. The thought provoking and engaging campaign won the Grand Prix and two gold medals for Best Creative Campaign and Best Campaign for Social Good at ECHO Latam.

Agency: dentsu Benelux
Client: Fonds Gehandicaptensport / Market: Netherlands

The power of a Tikkie! Dentsu partnered with the Dutch Fonds Gehandicaptensport (Disabled Sports Fund) to ensure disabled athletes excelled in sport and didn’t face additional challenges with fundraising.

Athletes with disabilities face barriers when fundraising; door-to-door collections are especially challenging, which were further restricted by COVID-19. To address this hurdle dentsu and Dutch Fonds Gehandicaptensport created Power Talks to PowerTik, an impactful campaign that told the stories of five athletes with disabilities and ran in the Netherlands throughout April 2021. The athletes shared why sport is so important to them, with the aim of inspiring a million more potential disabled athletes to get involved. The campaign brought attention to the barriers athletes with disabilities face when fundraising.

By using PowerTiks – which refer to a well-known digital payment solution in the Netherlands called a Tikkie – individuals and sport clubs can create their own digital collection box on the fund’s website. The campaign reached six million people across the Netherlands and helped to raise €250,000. Dentsu is proud to have become a long-term partner of the foundation, with a vision for bringing awareness to these outstanding athletes for many years to come

Agency: dentsumcgarrybowen. Dentsu Studio, Isobar
Client: Dyslexia Canada / Market: Canada

One in five people worldwide has dyslexia, and the neurological condition is not just about jumbled letters or words jumping around on a page. All too often young people with dyslexia are dismissed as being slow or unmotivated. Dyslexia Canada is on a mission to ensure that every child with dyslexia in the country gets a fair and equitable education and =to demonstrate what it is like to have the condition to those who don’t.

Working closely with the charity Dyslexia, we created a campaign to demonstrate that dyslexia is no fairy tale. The It’s Hard to Read campaign rewrites classic children’s fairy tales using words that deliberately complicate the story to overwhelm the reader and highlight the difficulties of dyslexia. The bilingual campaign gives the audience a glimpse of what children with dyslexia experience every day, highlighting that for those with the condition, no story is simple.

The out-of-home and print experiential campaign uses familiar illustrations along with altered titles of classic children’s books: The Three Little Pigs becomes The Triumvirate of Undersized Swine; Goldilocks and the Three Bears is renamed Gilded Coiffure and the Ursine Ternary; while Little Red Riding Hood becomes The Diminutive Crimson-Clad Maiden.

The campaign is accompanied by an immersive new website, itshardtoread.org, which has since been dubbed the hardest website to read in the world. The site aims to help those with dyslexia overcome the learning disability, and properly educate others on the reality of the issue.

“For a person with dyslexia, the printed word can seem like a foreign language that everyone understands but you. Dentsu immediately understood the gravity of the situation and the impact of the lack of awareness and understanding,” says the charity’s founder Keith Gray. “We are grateful for the time dentsu took to really listen and understand that dyslexia is more than just reversing letters or scrambling words.”

The campaign resulted in over 51.3 million radio impressions and 777,000 visits to the new website. A further 2.67 million interacted with outdoor media, while over nine million people were exposed to print coverage of the campaign. This extensive reach has increased much-needed awareness around the issue. In February 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled in favour of Dyslexia Canada, forcing the provincial government to take action to modernise its curriculum with materials and programmes that recognise and help those with dyslexia.

Agency: dentsu health
Client: dentsu / Market: United States

Vaccinations have dramatically changed the prevalence of diseases throughout the globe such as smallpox, measles and polio. However, approximately a quarter of Americans are reluctant to get vaccinated against COVID-19. To raise awareness of the benefits of vaccinations, dentsu health worked with the Ad Council and the COVID Collaborative on a major information campaign across the United States of America.

Research by the Ad Council in February 2021 revealed that nearly 40% of Americans had not yet made a firm decision to get vaccinated. The data also showed the need to end confusion and bring fresh knowledge to communities of colour, who had been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, had little trust in the government and medical community, and were therefore highly hesitant towards vaccines.

We joined forces with more than 300 major brands, media companies, community-based organisations, faith leaders and medical experts to reach Black and Hispanic communities that have been most affected by the pandemic. Our goal was to help shift this public opinion and encourage a 70% take- up in vaccines.

Kathy Kayse, Chief Media Strategy and Partnerships Officer at the Ad Council, said: “Dentsu health activated the power of their network and came to the table with a robust segmentation approach, helping us to educate millions of Americans about the COVID-19 vaccines. We were honoured to be one of their earliest clients and are excited to see what is next for dentsu health.”

Agency: dentsu ANZ and Carat
Client: UNICEF’s VaccinAid appeaL / Market: Australia/New Zealand

The largest vaccine-supply operation in history is underway across the world, and UNICEF is at its forefront. The organisation has been organising international transport of COVID-19 vaccines for COVAX as they deliver lifesaving supplies across countries around the world. This initiative is aiming to protect frontline health and social care workers, alongside high-risk and vulnerable groups. We at dentsu and Carat partnered with UNICEF Australia to support the COVAX initiative, a global drive to ensure people in developing countries have access to COVID-19 vaccines.

In September 2021, UNICEF Australia asked Australians to donate to the cause through its consumer campaign, ‘Give the World a Shot’, which hoped to deliver two billion vaccines in addition to millions of tests and other treatments.

As part of the campaign, a $5 donation contributed two doses of the Covid vaccine in the developing world, and UNICEF Australia aimed to raise at least $1 million by the end of the year. The global vaccine equity mechanism delivered 1.2 billion vaccines to 144 countries within 12 months.

The Australia and New Zealand  arm of dentsu donated $10 for every vaccinated employee and called on the rest of the advertising industry to support the scheme. Denstu Australia and New Zealand CEO Sue Squillace said, “We spent time thinking about what it meant for our agency community to be vaccinated, and it centred around freedom and a sense of getting back to normality, spending time with family and friends, colleagues and of course travelling.” We at dentsu are proud to play a part in this continued push for equal access to vaccines.

Agency: dentsu international
Client: Malaria No More / Market: Global

In 2021, we were proud to partner with global NGO Malaria No More UK to launch ‘Draw The Line Against Malaria’. The star-studded creative campaign invites youth from across Africa and the globe to join the movement to end one of the world’s oldest and most deadly diseases. The global integrated campaign is the latest in a three-year pro bono partnership involving creative and media agencies from across the dentsu international network, aimed at ending a disease that kills a child every minute.

The campaign invites people to share the cinematic hero film, directed by acclaimed Nigerian music video director Meji Alabi, which showcases the captivating talent and energy emanating out of the African continent, including Dr Omotola J Ekeinde, Nigerian actress and philanthropist; Osas Ighodaro, Nigerian-American actress and producer; Saray Khumalo, South African explorer; Eliud Kipchoge, Olympic Gold-medallist and marathon world record- holder; Siya Kolisi, Captain of the Springboks, South Africa’s World Cup winning rugby team; and Sherrie Silver, award-winning Rwandan British choreographer.

At the heart of the campaign is a fresh new universal visual language made up of lines, symbols and patterns, the ‘Muundo’ created by acclaimed Nigerian artist, activist and human rights lawyer, Láolú Senbanjo. Each line will create a unique piece of art that is added to a globally crowdsourced mural. The artwork will be presented to world leaders as a collective message of solidarity powered by the people at the Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases Summit in June 2022, on the eve of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kigali, Rwanda. The Summit is a milestone moment in the malaria fight and enabler of game-changing political decisions including delivering the commitment to halve malaria across the Commonwealth by 2023.

Over 100 dentsu volunteers from Amsterdam, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Geneva, London, Nairobi and New York worked in close collaboration with a collection of agencies, including the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), the African Union Commission, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Impact Santé Afrique, Malaria No More UK, RBM Partnership to End Malaria and Speak Up Africa.

The creative and strategy was led by Isobar Amsterdam, with dentsu media agencies iProspect and Carat collaborating to drive media planning across multiple African markets including Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia as well as target donor markets including the UK, USA, Japan and Australia. The digital platform was created by Isobar in collaboration with Firstborn.

Daniël Sytsma, Chief Design Officer, dentsu Creative, said: “We worked with creators and makers from across Africa to design this campaign as a movement, one that celebrates the creativity and positivity from a generation that is ready to claim their future. With the Muundo we want to provide young people with the tools and the language to deliver a powerful message.”

Agency: dentsu international Hong Kong
Client: RainLily / Market: Hong Kong

In Hong Kong one in seven women have suffered from sexual violence, and the wall of silence surrounding this urgently needs to be broken down. At dentsu Hong Kong, we partnered with RainLily, a local organisation that supports victims of abuse, to shed light on the reality and raise awareness.

Every agency department worked together on the #OneinSeven campaign, which ran on all mainstream digital video platforms, TV and out- of-home media. To encourage people to donate, share and learn more, RainLily’s website was revamped with a new emphasis on a seamless experience by Isobar, dentsu’s creative agency in Hong Kong.

Simone Tam, CEO of dentsu Hong Kong, told us: “When I first learned from RainLily that one in every seven women in Hong Kong has been a victim of sexual violence, I knew we had to do something about it. With our talents, expertise and network, I believe we have the power to influence and inspire. By working together, we can make a positive impact in our society.”

The campaign achieved a total reach of 5.6 million people and was recognised by Campaign Asia as one of the top five applause-worthy ads across Asia Pacific in 2021. As the issue is often not taken seriously in society despite the increasing number of victims, this campaign’s significant reach brought people’s attention to the issue and promoted the resources provided by RainLily for those in need.