Clemenger BBDO Wellington

Client: New Zealand Human Rights Commission
Product: New Zealand Human Rights Commission
Title: Give Nothing to Racism
Media: Digital
Country: New Zealand
Date Of Campaign: 15 June 2017

Background: Kiwis are quick to say they’re open minded and fair. They don’t consider themselves racist, because our racism isn’t as extreme as what see happening overseas. But racism does exist here, and it’s growing. But 1 in 3 complaints to the NZ Human Rights Commission is about racial discrimination, and many more go unreported. We needed New Zealanders to see that racism starts small, and that even giving only a little to racism was helping it grow.

Idea: When it comes to appeals, everyone understands that every little bit adds up and makes a difference. So to get Kiwis to reconsider the impact of their ‘small and insignificant’ casual racism, we launched one of our own online.New Zealander of the Year Taika Waititi started the campaign by asking the nation ‘What will you give to racism? Launching in social we addressed Kiwis directly, challenging them to rethink their views on casual racism in a public forum, to spark conversations around a previously ignored or easily brushed off topic. ‘Give Nothing to Racism’ and the video itself served as our call-to-action, an answer for people to use in those debates, used continually as a tool to reframe online conversations and examples of casual racism.With this frame, we showed Kiwis that every little tiny bit of casual racism they were giving was adding up and contributing to the bigger cause. Suddenly people felt less comfortable feeding it, tolerating it, and allowing it to grow, and instead committed to giving racism no laughs, no smiles, no positive reactions, no support.

Results: Kiwis began to use ‘Give Nothing to Racism’ to call racism out in the media, in the education system, on sports fields, in businesses – everywhere they saw it. It’s being used both as a standard to live up to, and a tool to respond to even the smallest examples of racism, in the real world and online – with a nation of individuals, organisations, schools, and even three of our major cities now giving nothing to racism.Viewed more times than the entire population of New Zealand, the campaign has reached 187 countries. It has been covered by all major national news outlets, and internationally by The Guardian, The Independent, and The Telegraph, among countless others.Give Nothing to Racism has started to become a standard adopted by ordinary Kiwis, businesses and schools, many of which are working on internal policies to help minimise casual racism. Three of our major cities have adopted it, and it was presented to the UN Committee on Racial Injustice as a significant action Kiwis have taken against racism.Six months after the last paid activity was in market we continue to see Give Nothing show up online as a response to casual racism – not from us, but from New Zealanders who have taken on the cause.• 79% of people who saw Give Nothing recognized that even small acts of racism can be harmful to others,• 40% thought about their own views and behaviours related to racism,• 26% talked with others about racism, and• 14% changed their behaviour towards people of different racial backgrounds