Finding a word wasn’t enough – we needed men to adopt it. So we targeted the channels, influencers and media they consume most. We seeded it in culture, got DJs talking about it, influencers arguing about it, and media writing about it. We deliberately targeted reactionary media, provocative journalists and outspoken columnists – creating a debate that fueled argument across national broadcast outlets, delivering an earned reach of over 3.5bn.

Behavioural science told us that we needed a simple and easy action to start a change in behaviour. This needed to be easy to remember and safe to use.

Our word, MAAATE, can flex according to the severity of the transgression – from spilling a pint to something far more serious.

Then we needed to embed Maaate into culture. To avoid looking like a Government initiative, we launched unbranded, seeding Maaate into culture through word of mouth and influencers.

We created an online interactive film featuring young men hanging out. As one character becomes more misogynistic, viewers could change the narrative by getting one of the characters to say ‘Maaate’. With over 270 possible story outcomes, it was a valuable tool to educate media and consumers.

Like many countries, the UK media landscape is both polarised and partisan, with many newspapers, journalists and broadcasters automatically negative towards anything the (Labour/leftwing) Mayor of London says. Whatever he does, they’ll hate it. We used this to our advantage. Having found our word, we seeded “maaate” into culture by using the UK’s biggest stand-up comedian, Romesh Ranganathan, who performed a bespoke stand-up routine up and down the country.

We engaged influencers our audience of young men looked up to – using word of mouth to embed ‘maaate’ into the vernacular as a way to call out misogyny. We did it all unbranded – so men felt it was a message spearheaded and championed by men, not government. Then we owned up, and owned it – targeting the outlets, journalists and columnists we knew would react. From rightwing tabloids to shockjock presenters, our strategy was to stoke debate and discussion, and spread the campaign everywhere.