Research informs M&C Saatchi campaign for Rise.365 and Clear Channel

M&C Saatchi conducted in-depth interviews with seven young volunteers from Rise.365 about their experiences of bias.

Participants shared their memories of others’ pejorative judgements – including being randomly stopped and searched by the police at the age of 12, and being told their dual heritage made them “more tolerable”.

The campaign features negative narratives that emerged through the research as a series of book covers. Each one features a Rise.365 volunteer and a title based on their experience. 

The book cover ‘titles’ were taken directly from conversations between the participants and M&C Saatchi, while the young men featured on the covers are shown reacting to these judgements.

The campaign aims to "encourage people to reflect on their perspectives, to help us move towards a more inclusive and fair society", according to M&C Saatchi. 

Media partner, out-of-home media company Clear Channel, will run the campaign on its digital out-of-home screens across the UK.

Joyclen Buffong, founder and director, Rise.365, said: “As an organisation that’s dedicated to changing the narrative, it’s been part of our mandate to continually challenge social bias. All too often, people categorise our young people through their inaccurate social assumptions, judgements, and unfair treatment, and we’ve been doing the groundwork through campaigns such as this to uproot the negative impact. 

“It has been a great experience working with M&C Saatchi, who took the time to work closely with our young men, creating a safe space for them to express their experiences and challenges and using that to inspire exceptional creativity.”

Shaun Okoh, senior strategist, M&C Saatchi, added: “Bias can be challenging to tackle. It’s human nature to sometimes create narratives in our minds about people we don’t know. However, for young black boys, the narrative created is often a negative one. This campaign needed to get people questioning the stories they make up and what better way to do that than with book covers?”