Despite progressive new laws, most Australians were not educated on consent and unable to define it. Government advertising campaigns that were designed to be educational were mocked and criticized. A new approach was needed to make a cultural impact - not top-down, but from a grassroots level.

We identified a unique problem: 3 in 5 Australians couldn’t recognise lack of consent in popular films. Most of these non-consensual acts were depicted in funny or romantic scenes, making them easy to miss. Academic research pointed to the normalisation that occurred as a result, and that troublingly affected real-world behavior.

Our objective was to disrupt this normalisation in any and every scene in which it occurred, from a childhood classic to a beloved romance - allowing audiences to recognise lack-of-consent in all facets of life, and using pop culture to drive cultural change from the grassroots.

#ClassifyConsent is our campaign for the first-ever film classification (“C”) to call out lack of consent.

Lack of consent is normalised every day, and Australians collectively spend 780,000,000 hours a year watching it. 3 in 5 people can’t recognise non-consensual acts in films. Academics have even studied how the more we depict non-consensual acts as lighthearted or romantic on screen, the less seriously we take consent in real life.*

Our classification is simple: just like with “violence”, it informs viewers of “lack of consent” in content before they watch. But it’s also powerful, turning entertainment into education each time it’s used.

With a single “C”, every use of the classification in a film or show empowers millions of viewers to stop normalising “lack of consent”, and start recognising it on screen and off.

* Prof. Julia Lippman, University of Michigan; Prof. Sujata Moorti, Middlebury College

Previous attempts to impact our culture around sexual consent failed by using a government-led top-down approach, targeted at youth. Consent Labs’ primary audience is young people (aged 12–24). So our strategy was to meet them where they lived: on social media. We launched our campaign on TikTok, exposing the non-consent in famous scenes as examples that would attract our classification.

Overlayed supers unpacked why these scenes lacked consent, and each post was watched millions of times, becoming its own educational asset and sparking debate with material that people were already watching.

The classification meant that Australians watched their favourite content through fresh eyes, seeing what they had previously missed.

With social media abuzz, we pitched the story to mainstream media where journalists independently unearthed their own examples from films – showing the effectiveness of consuming entertainment through an educational lens, rather than trying to make education entertaining.

To launch our campaign for a new classification, we posted famous film moments with “lack of consent” on TikTok, educating through entertainment and reaching an audience of millions. From forcibly kissing someone to secretly removing a condom, each scene taught viewers to recognise consent on screen and in life.

Every touchpoint of the campaign communicated the movement to #ClassifyConsent, and all assets pointed people to our website where thousands pledged their support for the classification, downloaded toolkits, and even submitted more scenes.

Our campaign hijacked the most popular entertainment in the world to expose how we normalise non-consent. Widespread coverage in global mainstream media led to our official partnership with the Australian Classification Board.

We’ve now authored the official government guidelines for using the (C) Lack of Consent classification (the first of its kind) to be implemented nationwide in 2023 - changing our lens on consent, every time we press play.

With zero spend we reached over 6 million TikTok views simply by hijacking pre-existing media - films. Consent Labs, our not-for-profit partner, saw their TikTok following grow over 2000% during the campaign. Campaign coverage reached global media from the U.S to the U.K, with an estimated earned reach of over 200 million.

Hundreds of Australians shared their own examples of scenes through comments and website submissions. Even media members suggested their own examples* and 71% of Australians supported it becoming law**. We used pop culture to drive cultural change.

Widespread public support led to an endorsement from Netflix, and we officially partnered with the Australian Classification Board to implement the first-ever “lack of consent” classification across new films nationwide in 2023 - so millions will learn about consent, just by pressing play.

* “Ad of the Week”, Campaign Asia, Sydney Morning Herald, Harper’s Bazaar

** National Pureprofile research, July 2022