FCB/SIX reframes the negative message into an inclusive call to action for travel company Black & Abroad
Black & Abroad, a multi-platform travel & lifestyle company dedicated to redefining world experiences for the modern Black traveller, hijacks the racialised and derogatory phrase 'Go back to Africa' (#GoBackToAfrica) for a pan-African tourism campaign. By blacking out hate-fuelled Twitter posts and re-framing them against words and images showing the beauty and diversity of all African countries, the brand is putting a positive and uplifting spin on a negative and disparaging narrative.
鈥淥ne of the campaign鈥檚 goals is to effectively strip the perceived power away from those who use the phrase 鈥楪o back to Africa鈥 with derogatory intent,鈥 says Eric Martin, co-founder of Black & Abroad. 鈥淚f we can strip the expression of its impact, then we can debunk the age-old narrative that Africa is a desolate, disease-ridden wasteland undeserving of our time and travels.鈥
The phrase 'Go back to Africa' has a long, complicated history, and unfortunately, today, it is still widely used in racialised contexts online and beyond. According to NetBase鈥檚 social listening platform, the phrase is used over 4500 times a month online.
The Plan
Black & Abroad partnered with data-driven creative agency FCB/SIX to bring this campaign to life. Through a series of paid ads on Twitter, YouTube and digital OOH, Black & Abroad is capturing that hate as it happens, redacting the context, then turning it into a positive tourism message 鈥 brought to life through user generated photos harvested from social media using a powerful AI platform.
With messaging speaking to each of Africa鈥檚 54 countries, every ad in the campaign builds equity behind the hashtag #GoBackToAfrica while driving to a new website at .
鈥淲e鈥檙e interested in showing a more diverse picture of Africa than you see in traditional tourism campaigns,鈥 says Martin. 鈥淵es, there are zebras in Africa, and zebras are great. But there are also amazing art galleries, and restaurants, and beaches, and other experiences, many of which may be more relevant to African American tourists than some other groups.鈥
GoBackToAfrica.com
To create the campaign, FCB/SIX partnered with IPG鈥檚 Initiative Media to help identify and reach African Americans who are interested in travel. It highlights each one of Africa鈥檚 54 countries then invites them to 鈥淪ee themselves there鈥 by clicking through to GoBackToAfrica.com. Designed as a counterpoint to the travel industry鈥檚 bias toward Caucasian travellers, the site features all African countries, and real social photos of African Americans travelling there.
鈥淒o a quick Google image or stock image search of the word 鈥榯ravel鈥 and you鈥檒l immediately see how biased the industry is toward Caucasians,鈥 says Ian Mackenzie, executive director of FCB/SIX. 鈥 is a place where African American travellers can see themselves represented with positive images set in each one of Africa鈥檚 54 countries.鈥
The technology
At the heart of the project is an innovative digital platform designed to locate, quality control and gain permissions to use aspirational images of African Americans travelling in Africa. The platform, fuelled by Google Vision and crafted by FCB/SIX, is an AI-powered content marketing engine purpose-built for the travel and tourism industry. The platform looks for images and ingests thousands of pieces of user generated visual content from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, then uses Google Vision鈥檚 image recognition technology to filter through content by location, subject, quality, and relevancy 鈥 all in real-time. Once curated and customised into campaign materials, the agency uses the platform to push the content out through Black & Abroad鈥檚 social channels and website.
The ultimate goal is for this campaign to break down barriers and encourage conversation among Black travellers around what it means to 鈥楪o back to Africa.鈥 Through targeted efforts to effectively showcase the essence of each African country, the campaign aims to spark a movement dedicated to eroding the negative perceptions of the continent with the high volume of content it creates purposefully designed to displace and bury hateful content that exists online.