Mindshare
Red Line
Awards: Virtual and Augmented Reality (Gold) and Brand Advertising Campaign (Bronze)
Campaign summary
Psychological violence is mainly spread by daily language and there are many inured sexist expressions dwelled in Turkey. The language that the media uses everyday is also normalizing the psychological abuse in Turkey intentionally & unintentionally. With Red Line project, we aimed to create awareness towards the sexist discourse that’s normalized in everyday's language and eliminate them.
We’ve partnered with Hurriyet, a mass media channel reaching millions each everyday. To be able to analyze & highlight thousands of news in real time, we’ve created the one and only AI that specializes in Turkish language and implemented the code into Hürriyet’s interface.
A «Red Line» button was integrated to Hurriyet’s webpage, and when clicked the AI activated and showed users words/phrases or sentences that were causing or strengthening negative gender stereotypes.
We launched the project on International Women’s Day, with a full-page manifesto in the newspaper, and columnists’ videos explaining the project on the website.
6k columns and news on Hurriyet were analyzed in the 6 months by Vodafone’s AI. Thanks to the Red Line button, 15 million visitors detected the sexist statements in the newspaper content and became aware of the impact and importance of the matter on the society.
- Objectives and Strategy
33% of women in Turkey are subject to physical violence. 44% of them are exposed to psychological violence at home, at work, via social media or on the streets. Psychological violence is mainly spread by daily language and there are many inured sexist expressions dwelled in Turkey. The language that the media uses everyday is also normalizing the pyschological abuse in Turkey intentionally & unintentionally.
As Vodafone, we have a longstanding purpose towards gender equality and improving the lives of women. With Red Line project, we aimed to create awareness towards the sexist discourse that’s normalized in everyday's language and eliminate them.
In order to achieve that goal, it was critical to reach a wide audience in a disruptive and continuous way, to first grab people’s attention and then create the change. Also, having the endorsement of highly regarded public opinion formers was also key to succeed.
- Execution and Media
As one of the biggest and respectable news outlets, we’ve partnered with Hurriyet, a mass media channel reaching millions each everyday. Even the columnists and news reporters were heavily using sexist discourse intentionally or unintentionally. Underlining the impact of this language on the society and create awareness towards the matter, all well known columnists writing on Hurriyet also participated both via announcing the campaign and auditing their columns to eliminate the statements.
To be able to analyze & highlight thousands of news in real time, we’ve created the one and only AI that specializes in Turkish language.
A «Red Line» button was integrated to Hurriyet’s webpage, and when clicked the AI activated and showed users words/phrases or sentences that were causing or strengthening negative gender stereotypes.
We launched the project on International Women’s Day, with a full-page manifesto in the newspaper, and columnists’ videos explaining the project on the website.
- Creative
Disrupting people to gather their attention was critical in creative execution. Columnists’ videos used big placards, showing a sexist statement crossed with a red line and then showing another statement with the exact same meaning. Same creative route used in all channels.
When heard about the project and clicked the “Red Line” button, each user experienced how many sexist statements were in front of their eyes that they haven’t even noticed.
Since the core of our campaign was to wipe off sexist discourse, this was at the core of all creative content and its power derived from its simplicity.
- Innovation
Turkish is a very challenging language for developing an AI that fully understands it. It has a unique grammatical structure and many hard-to-detect nuances and it makes the development process a lot harder.
We created a first of its kind AI that specializes in Turkish language and implemented the code into Hürriyet’s interface to detect and highlight sexist discourse.
Journalists could also clear sexist words/phrases from their content before publishing them, thanks to the add-on integrated to Hurriyet’s content management system. This way, the creator and distributor of the content was becoming aware of the issue, while preventing the exposure of millions of readers to sexist statements.
We have partnered with Vircon, a promising local AI development startup, in the creation of Vodafone’s gender equality AI. As a technology company, it is also another priority for us to invest in and partner with local tech developers.
5. Results
6k columns and news on Hurriyet were analyzed in the 6 months by Vodafone’s AI.
Thanks to the Red Line button, 15 million Hurriyet visitors detected the sexist statements in the newspaper content and became aware of the impact and importance of the matter on the society. So far, the campaign was awarded 9 times in several reputable award platforms listed above.
