HOW 2019'S MOST PROVOCATIVE TRAVEL CAMPAIGN MEASURABLY CHANGED THE MEANING AND USAGE OF AN ANTI-BLACK SLUR.

On April 15, 2019, Black & Abroad launched a provocative but relentlessly positive travel campaign. It turned the racial slur "Go Back To Africa" into an uplifting call to action. And while it was immediately embraced by the brand's audiences, since then its influence and impact have only grown. You can see that impact by searching #GoBackToAfrica on Instagram. You can see it in how the brand shows up in conversations about Black travel globally. You can see it in the sentiment analysis of how the phrase is used online. And two years after launch, you can see the campaign going viral again – being viewed more than 4.2 million times in just the first three weeks of March 2021 alone.[1] It's a timely and important demonstration that as long as anti-Black racism proliferates, the brand's positive vision and the campaign's powerful strategy will continue to resonate.

BACKGROUND:

The ‘Black Travel Movement’ began to take hold in 2015 when a growing number of digital communities took form as a place for Black travellers to share experiences and information. Black & Abroad began as one of these trailblazing communities and has since expanded into a multi-platform travel & lifestyle company. It now provides curated travel experiences catered to the Black community.

CHALLENGE:

One of the challenges the company faces when merchandising these tours is Black representation in commercial travel imagery. Our analysis of Google image search results found that fewer than 6% of African travel imagery feature Black people, and of that less than half are represented as tourists.[2] In addition, multiple academic studies have concluded that non-white populations are not well represented in travel photography.[3,4]

A second major challenge is overcoming inaccurate and harmful views of the continent itself. For years African countries have been portrayed to American audiences as one-dimensional and unappealing. A quarter of our (polled) target audience stated they had no interest at all in ever travelling to Africa.[5]

INSIGHT:

When someone with racist intent says “Go back to Africa,” it’s hurtful. But if you could change the context, you could also change the meaning.

SOLUTION:

Go Back to Africa – A pan-African tourism campaign that turns a racial slur into an uplifting call to action.

EXECUTION:

We hijacked hateful uses of the phrase “Go Back To Africa” as they happened on Twitter and redacted the racist context. Then we used them as headlines for hyper-targeted ads for each of Africa’s 54 countries.

The ads drive to GoBackToAfrica.com – an algorithmic and A.I.-powered media management platform designed to unlock the potential of millions of travel images posted to social media from around the world. GoBackToAfrica.com is built to encourage members of the Black community to browse images that are truly representative of travel experiences to Africa.

The GoBackToAfrica.com platform also powers programmatic banner ads that use interest-based targeting to connect our target with specific African travel destinations.