Can an Ad Campaign Get Egyptian Men to Speak the Names of Their Mothers?

Stripping away someone’s name goes a long toward dehumanizing that person. UN Women and Impact BBDO Dubai poignantly drive home that point in a two-minute film that was timed for Mother’s Day in the Middle East on March 21.

“Give Mom Back Her Name” shows on-the-street interviews with various Egyptian men. Keeping with local custom, they refuse to speak their mothers’ names in public. (For men in Egypt and many other countries in the Middle East, there is a peculiar taboo of not disclosing one’s mother’s name in public, lest it become a subject of shame and ridicule.)

A young guy leaning out of a car window explains, “We feel it could bring us ridicule and embarrassment.” An older man adds, “If someone knew our mother’s name, we used to sob when we were kids.” For me, the most unsettling reaction comes from a youngish dude in a blue shirt who can’t stop giggling. It’s as if he’s struggling to process the request, and awkward laughter is the only response he can muster because the notion of naming his mother in public has, at least temporarily, short-circuited his brain.

Over time, we’re told, many women have their names largely forgotten, and they are referred to as the mothers of their eldest sons. Ultimately, the film asks viewers to change their social-media profile icons to their mother’s names and spread word of the initiative using the hashtag #MyMothersNameIs.

“The right to one’s own name not being associated with shame or embarrassment is one step closer to equality,” says Fadi Yaish, regional executive creative director at Impact BBDO. “It is a basic human right.”

The film—by the same group behind 2013’s lauded Google autocomplete campaign—contains an especially sweet and uplifting scene near the end. Spoiler: The blue-shirted guy, so vexed at the outset, stands in a busy street beside his mom and speaks her name. It’s a moving, redemptive moment that reminds viewers that change and progress are always possible.

According to Yaish, in its first 48 hours online, the film received 1.5 million views on Facebook and YouTube, and over 4 million impressions on Facebook alone. The most “shocking outcome,” he says, is that women in the region felt empowered and “spoke out across all media and on social platforms saying their names.”

AdFreak: What’s the one big takeaway from this film?
Fadi Yaish: Social taboos are man made, and they can be broken by starting a conversation.

Was it tough to make? Did anyone become offended and storm off?
Some people were angry, thought we are making fun of them and refused to participate. Some people did not know what to say. Some people spoke up. As you can see in the film, some people, especially the young ones, just simply were shocked we asked them this question. It was like moment of truth. They were thinking, “I should be able to say my mother’s name! Why can’t I?” It made them question and doubt.

Who is the target audience? Do you think it will get through to them?
The core target is Egypt, which will spill to countries that have the same problem—Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan. [The message] got through already, and to everyone. It is growing bigger every second.

Any big surprises?
The response of men in general was kind of expected. Because of the “moment of truth,” the real shame would be on us men—the fact that we took away the name of the person that gave us our names and gave us our lives. The surprise was women speaking up, and refusing to accept the current situation. Google the hashtag, and you will see women saying their names. This is amazing.

CREDITS
Client: UN Women
Agency: Impact BBDO Dubai
Executive Creative Director/Editor: Fadi Yaish
Art Director: Maged Nassar, Tameem Younes
Copywriter: Aunindo Sen
Graphic designer: Mohamed Said
Typographer: Mahmmad Al Mahdy
Production House: Bigfoot
Director: Maged Nassar, Tameem Younes
DOP: Ahmed Tahoun
Post Production: Lizard



Can an Ad Campaign for Women’s Rights Succeed by Only Featuring Men?

Women earn 30 percent less than men for the same work. Some 64 percent of the world's illiterate people are women. Almost 800 women die every day from preventable complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

These are just some of the mind-boggling global injustices cited by UN Women on a new website, HeForShe.org, intended to motivate men to act against gender inequality and violence toward women. Created by Publicis Dallas, the campaign asks men to upload YouTube clips of themselves speaking out in support of women. For further inspiration, it includes a simple but powerful video of well-known men—including activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Matt Damon and Patrick Stewart—sharing their perspectives.

It's not a risk-free approach for UN Women, which had a global hit last year with its Google autocomplete campaign by Ogilvy Dubai. Some might think that focusing on men somehow implies their opinions are of greater value. But Publicis says the unusual strategy is the campaign's strength.

"He For She is a unique women's rights campaign in the simple fact that we don't approach the problem from a female perspective, and that's what makes it so powerful," Brad Roseberry, the agency's chief creative officer, said in a statement.

The cause is made all the more pressing by the fact that it's gone underaddressed for so long. (The ad industry, of course, has plenty to do in fixing its own deeply ingrained gender inequalities.) As the new campaign so clearly expresses, the power to solve it often remains concentrated in the hands of men.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: UN Women
Agency: Publicis Dallas
Executive Creative Director: Brad Roseberry
Creative Director: Natalie Lavery
Copywriter: Jacob Latchem
Art Directors: Alex Pierce, Joshua Tovar
Producers: Lori Wallace, Desiree Townsend
Web Developers: Alex Pierce, Eric Taylor, Dennis Covington, Jason Awbry
Designers: Alex Pierce, Joshua Tovar
Account Directors: Susan Scott, Whitney Sprague
Editing Company: Republic Edit
Editor: Andy McGee
Producer: Jacklyn Sandoval Roman


    



The 7 Most Inspiring Ad Campaigns for Women in 2013

It's been a great year for women-empowering ads. Brands tackled everything from gender stereotypes (Pantene) to sexism (UN Women) to cultural repression (Tanishq), encouraged women to be kinder to themselves (Dove), got girls to celebrate their own strength (GoldieBlox, Mercy Academy), and even made a this-is-for-real ad about periods (HelloFlo).

Below, we've collected the seven most popular campaigns of the year. Popular doesn't necessarily mean universally loved; none of the work was received without some backlash or criticism. You can vote for your favorite with a tweet. Not seeing your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

UPDATE: The runaway winner is Mercy Academy. Congratulations!


    

UN Women Take Famously Empowering Autocomplete Campaign Into Video

UN Women sparked a global debate last month, surprising even the group itself, when their modest print campaign, The Autocomplete Truth, went viral across the Web. Now, the organization and agency Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai are back with a video extension of the campaign, as they hinted at in a recent interview with AdFreak. The clip is mostly a collection of great moments in the history of female empowerment, and I was a bit disappointed to see just one of the Google autocomplete examples at the end. It feels like this could have been an opportunity to truly expand the campaign, showing new examples of search suggestions worldwide or even just highlighting the countless blog posts, articles and online conversations generated by the print ads. Still, it's good to see UN Women building on that initial success and creating something—including the hashtag #womenshould—that gives fans more content and context to share.