our workWYCA / tackling violence against women and girls
86% of young women in the UK have experienced sexual harassment in public. It’s not banter. It’s not harmless. And it’s not okay. We were briefed by Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, to support West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Violence Against Women & Girls (VAWG) strategy, by helping young men understand the harm that seemingly low-level public behaviours cause.
Every ‘I was just’ adds to a toxic culture
“I was just looking at her!” “I was just being nice…” “I was just saying she should smile more…” It’s easy for some men to excuse what can seem to be harmless behaviours without understanding that they’re setting the stage for the worst crimes against women and girls. Studies have shown that the perpetrators of the most violent acts against women are emboldened by a culture where casual objectification is an accepted norm.
Our campaign set about to help change that.
1 million+ organic TikTok views in 6 days
Our #JustDont campaign launched on 19 September 2023. The campaign film achieved more than 1 million organic views on TikTok in under a week, appeared on Look North and local radio and was aired before the Leeds Rhinos rugby match – a strong start for what we hope continues to be a successful campaign generating much-needed conversation and reflection.
There’s just no excuse – so just don’t…
The campaign film focuses around the excuses young men give for behaviours that are unacceptable, escalating from ‘just’ staring to ‘just’ following a girl home after a night out. A shared narrative of “I was justs…” between 5 different men shows how their unacceptable behaviours are linked and feed into each other, while the end frames clearly communicate that there is ‘just’ no excuse, so just don’t…
Conversation generated on social media has been largely positive – great news for a high profile campaign tackling a sensitive subject matter, directed at an audience that can feel under attack. But we welcome the dissenting voices. Their deeply engrained attitudes and behaviours were never going to change by watching our film. But over time they will, when they see that the tide of public opinion is against them, and they no longer have the tacit support of their peers.
Only by generating conversation about the problem, can we hope to solve it.
The film was supported by a toolkit of OOH, digital and social assets for members of the combined authority to activate themselves.
A brilliant collaboration with our generous partners
This campaign was delivered on an extremely modest budget. We’d like to give a big shout out to David Jones at Habit5 for delivering a robust research framework, to Martin Gibbons Casting for his sterling casting support, to Director Carl Shanahan for bringing the vision to life, and to Spencer Bain at VTR North for voice recording. Outstanding allies, one and all.
