Male violence against women and girls is an epidemic in the UK: A woman dies at the hands of a man every three days. 97% have been sexually harassed.

Historically, the onus has been on women to adapt their behaviour to protect themselves. But it’s not women who need to change, it’s men. Not just the perpetrators, but those who stand by and let misogynistic behaviour go unchallenged.

Our Brief from the Mayor of London was to change the attitudes – and actions – of men, and make London a safer space for women.

Our campaign objectives were:

1.Increase awareness about the scale and urgency of the issue:

get all Londoners to understand the issue and that misogyny can escalate.

2.Challenge and prevent misogynistic attitudes and behaviours by men:

get all men to reflect on their own misogynistic behaviour and call it out in others.

Background & Context:

There is an epidemic of violence against women and girls in the UK: 97% of women have suffered sexual harassment3. A woman is killed every 3 days by a man4.

Research shows most offences against women are perpetrated by men and low-level misogyny is often a precursor to violence. Yet, men remain passive bystanders when witnessing it.

Whilst there’ve been campaigns to help women feel safer before, most of them talked to the wrong people: women.

We needed to hold men accountable and make them part of the solution.

The Creative Challenge:

Our task was to change the attitudes – and actions – of men, and make London a safer space for women today and in the future.

It was important not to alienate men - like other campaigns before us. They had to feel like our allies.

The Solution:

We used behavioural science to identify the most effective way to change men’s behaviours and recognised that the bystander culture was our real enemy.

For too long men have been passive bystanders when witnessing misogynistic behaviour. They dismiss it as harmless and playful. This ‘banter culture’ is what creates the conditions that allow violence against women to take place. By stopping the bystander culture, we could tackle low level misogyny. A first step to prevent extreme violence.

Behavioural science insights also told us that peer-to-peer pressure would be the most effective way to change men’s behaviour (where all other methods had failed). In doing so, we could create a culture where misogyny was not OK and where men spoke out against other men when they saw it.

From a complex problem, an utterly simple idea:

‘Have a word with yourself, then your mates’ is a simple, yet powerful call-to-action that asks men to reflect on their own behaviour, to challenge themselves about being bystanders allowing misogyny to happen; and then asks them to challenge the behaviour of their friends.

The Execution:

We created a raw campaign to make men uncomfortable with witnessing misogynistic behaviour and to break their own inertia about acting against it. Our film was unflinchingly relatable – instead of showing extreme acts of misogyny we showed “a friend going too far” and a scenario most men had witnessed before.

The campaign ran on social, cinemas, Premier League football games and anywhere harassment is commonplace. Pubs. Restaurants. Even male bathrooms - a true behavioural intervention at the very moment of possible reflection. Out-of-home took over London’s Transport and busiest footfall areas. A photo call with the Mayor and other sports stars was used to drive media coverage and we placed interviews with the Mayor and spokespeople across broadcast and print media. Men had nowhere to hide.

85% of men who saw the campaign said they would now call out misogyny if they see it5. Proving the campaign didn’t just increase awareness about male violence in London, it got men to become women’s allies.

We worked with a casting agent to deliberately cast people who had been affected by or witnessed misogyny. Not just the female cast, but the male cast as well. We drew on the cast’s personal experiences about the misogyny and harassment they had either been subjected to in the case of women, or witnessed, in the case of men and used their insights to help craft and improvise the dialogue.