Weber Shandwick and their out of home media partner Clear Channel have launched a campaign with ActionAid UK to raise awareness of female genital mutilation (FGM).
The campaign called #BrutalCut officially launched July 28 and is a fully integrated digital campaign spanning traditional and social media channels as well as digital out of home.
Very short messages from Kenyan girls facing the threat of FGM are being brutally ‘cut’ into content at scale, including celebrities and vlogger’s YouTube and Instagram videos, photos, cinema trailers, digital publisher content as well as Digital Out of Home screens up and down the UK.
Luke Walker, a creative behind the campaign at Weber Shandwick told us “It’s amazing so many vloggers, publishers and corporate partners have already got involved with the campaign – it’s an idea that works across any media and is reaching people who have never considered this issue before”.
The messages drive to the brutalcut.org website where anyone can add a #BrutalCut to their video or photo and share on social media.
Clear Channel has supported the campaign by hosting the first ever synchronised disruption of digital out of home across their national network of outdoor media sites. #BrutalCut features on hundreds of digital screens right across the UK, including one of the most iconic advertising sites in the world, One Piccadilly.
Support for the campaign has also provided by publishers including The LAD Bible group who cut their content across the Lad Bible and Pretty52 social media channels, reaching several million fans. Alesha Dixon, Katherine Kelly, and Joanne Froggatt along with a host of other well-known UK actors, comedians, performers and YouTube stars also interrupted their own videos with messages from Kenya. The campaign was also showcased to thousands of revellers at The Latitude festival in July.
ActionAid’s Brutal Cut campaign aims to alert people to the short and long term dangers of female genital mutilation and raise vital funds to provide safe centres for girls fleeing FGM in Kenya. In the centres, girls can rebuild their lives free from fear and stay in school. They are also an essential space for local women’s groups that ActionAid supports to campaign against FGM in their communities.
“This is an issue most people don’t want to confront. So we needed a brutally disruptive idea. An idea bold enough to break free of its channel to become news and social currency,” said James Nester, Executive Creative Director, Weber Shandwick.
Chris Pelekanou, Commercial Director at Clear Channel UK said “#BrutalCut is an incredibly powerful campaign and we’re proud to have worked with Weber Shandwick and ActionAid to create the first ever synchronized disruption of outdoor media, reaching people right across the UK”.
To find out more, or add a #brutalcut to your photo or video, you can visit www.BrutalCut.org.
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