Our solution is a way to stop these words long before they lead to violence. It is deceptively simple. It did touch a raw nerve in society. And it was effective. Post-campaign research from our first campaign, Have A Word, revealed that 85% would call out misogyny. It also revealed that two-thirds of men said they didn’t know how to call it out.

Our task was to better equip men to address low-level misogyny when they see it. GET: Young London men TO: call out their friend’s misogynistic comments BY: Giving them a tool to call out their friends

The obvious measure of success is to track if incidences of violence towards women decrease following the campaign. However, Public Health England’s 2021 bystander intervention review cautions against this. Campaigns increase reporting, and it’s a systemic issue where no single influence can claim responsibility.

Therefore, Public Heath England advises our measures should be: Breaking the silence – talking about how men can help Increasing men’s willingness to intervene Increasing men’s confidence to intervene

In March 2021, news that a police officer abducted, raped and murdered a woman in central London shocked the country and further eroded trust in London's institutions that are meant to provide safety for women. The Mayor of London turned to us.

Our behavioural science practice and creative teams joined forces and created ‘Have A Word’ in 2022, demonstrating that male violence towards women starts with words. We overcame the bystander effect, asking men to have a word with themselves, then their mates. It was wildly successful. This 2023 campaign, Maaate, is the evolution of Have A Word. It focuses on a harder brief: awareness ? enablement. This time, there was less of a cultural wave to ride. People weren’t talking about male violence towards women like before.

Again, we brought our in-house behavioural scientists, strategy and creative teams together to understand and influence male bystanders for good. Most anti-misogyny campaigns target perpetrators, who are unlikely to listen. We are deliberately targeting the people around the perpetrator, the bystanders, the friends, who have most influence over the perpetrator. Our focus is young (18-34) London men who will, in all likeliness, witness misogyny. Religion, ethnicity and nationality are not primary factors. We target social circles, behaviours, and the internal thought processes of our audience, not their demographics.

Applying the COM-B behaviour change model, we determined the factor we need to focus on is increasing our target audience’s ‘capability’, rather than motivation or opportunity.

? Motivation: 85% are motivated to call out misogyny ? Opportunity: Men are in environments where misogyny is present ? Capability: Two-thirds of men don’t know how to call out misogyny Pre-strategy, we sought foundational behavioural insights, calling on 26 experts, ethnography in male dominated spaces, 288 video diaries, big data linguistic analysis, and a thorough literature review.

Our breakthrough was discovering that friends call each other out from a place of love and respect for one another. And it’s this respectful approach often works best. No shaming.

Our now public report identified several strategic opportunities to encourage men to call out misogyny that directly influenced the strategy and execution. Work with men not against them Create subtle non-verbal cues for men to signal disapproval in the moment Use language that won’t alienate diverse worldviews (Eg, don’t be too ‘woke’) Seed the intervention into culture to create a movement The above became the creative brief, and our organising line was “Call it out with respect and levity”. Individuals from every agency department came together to rise to the challenge.

Our intervention was a single word. Maaate. A familiar word any man can use to call out their friend with the right balance of respect and disapproval. “Maaate, enough”. For it to be adopted, it would have to become famous. Our media strategy was informed by the science behind movements (Centola, 2007). Movements start at the edges, and it’s the number and diversity of sources you’re exposed to not the number of doses that matters. To become famous, we had to launch credibly. Our Social-Credibility-First Model: Outer. Launch with social credibility. We seeded Maaate into culture through comedians such as Romesh Ranganathan and LADbible’s creator network. Unattributed to the Mayor of London. Mass. Build momentum. Social-media-swell and our Maaate gif gained popularity in the months prior to official launch. Official. Own and amplify. Finally, OOH, paid social, mayoral press releases and our interactive film landed, loudly. The word Maaate was chosen because it casts the right balance between respect and levity. It is familiar to any man in London, both a term of endearment, and a gentle reprimand.

An independent third party tested it. Men across ages, cultures and ethnicities piloted it and described it as a ‘pacifier’, a way to punctuate the situation. The triple-A in Maaate creates distinctiveness, but also softens it. “Mate. Stop.” is too firm. We have evidence that respectful approaches work better than shame. Our OOH executions depict the power of Maaate as it bulldozes through misogynistic phrases gathered from real people’s stories and experiences. Meticulously hand-cut lino printing felt appropriate, with its history in movements and activism.

Our interactive film with 270 branches simulates what it’s like to be a bystander and a skip-like ‘Maaate’ button models the behaviour, showing how a simple ‘Maaate’ is often enough.

For Maaate to be used widely, it had to become national conversation. Nearly every tabloid and broadsheet devoted articles to it. Discussions on BBC Radio, BBC News, and national TV generated an earned reach of 3.5 billion, double the World Cup Final’s.

Our key objectives: Maaate drove willingness and confidence to intervene. Confidence grew from 38% to 54%. Willingness, 73% to 81%. We influenced our target. We turned the least likely group to intervene – 18-34-year-old-men – into the most likely to. Our credibility-first media strategy worked. Men discussing misogyny increased +15% online. Mentions of men combating misogyny increased 3x.

Reddit, Instagram, Mumsnet and even Gransnet comment sections were frequently 300-deep. Men are using Maaate. Romesh Ranganathan’s GIF has been viewed 547,465 times. YouGov find that nearly a third of young men have used ‘Mate’ to call friends out since the campaign, and half of those have been an elongated ‘Maaate’.