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  • SUB CATEGORY :
    SMALL BUDGET
  • COMPANY ENTERING :
    MULLENLOWE SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
  • TITLE :
    LEAVE WITH PRIDE
  • BRAND :
    ISEE
  • ADVERTISER :
    ISEE
  • AGENCY :
    MULLENLOWE SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
  • EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR :
    DANIEL KEE/SHENG JIN ANG
  • CREATIVE DIRECTOR :
    MARK IBAVIOSA/ANDREW HO
  • CREATIVE GROUP HEAD :
    NOVERI MANDEY
  • ART DIRECTOR :
    ANDREW HO/NOVERI MANDEY/NATASHA BENEDICTA
  • COPYWRITER :
    MARK IBAVIOSA/NHU TRAN
  • HEAD OF DIGITAL PRODUCTION :
    JOSE SIOJO JR
  • STRATEGIC PLANNING DIRECTOR :
    LAM TRAN
  • FILM PRODUCTION COMPANY :
    RICE VIETNAM, HO CHI MINH CITY/
    DIGITAL CARTEL SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
  • POST-PRODUCTION COMPANY :
    KRAFTW5RKZ SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
  • SOUND PRODUCTION COMPANY :
    NEON SOUND, SINGAPORE
  • SOUND ENGINEER :
    MATTHEW KOH
  • PRODUCER :
    MICHELLE TSAO
  • CAMPAIGN SUMMARY :
    Over 30% of Vietnamese believe being LGBTQ+ is a disease. In order to unearth homophobic bigots entrenched in high places, such as office superiors and school teachers, we issued LGBTQ+ volunteers sick leave; and armed with hidden cameras, they approached their superiors and teachers to request time-off. The reactions were used to activate experts from the scientific and medical community, and spokespersons from welfare and rights organisations to weigh in and provide needed public education. From the community and its allies, the campaign prompted millions of Vietnamese to petition local authorities to readdress their stance on LGBTQ+ being a disease.
  • THE BRIEF :
    Over 30% of Vietnamese believe being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) is a disease, despite medical and scientific evidence to the contrary. The stigmatisation and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, particularly evidenced by “gender treatments" and “conversion therapy", has led to physical and mental trauma that can last a lifetime.

    • Brief
    iSEE believes that all forms of pathologization and discrimination based on sexual orientation violate human rights and have endangered many people’s lives. We have to take a stand against that.

    • Objectives
    To show how absurd this belief is, spurring people to petition local health authorities to release a definitive statement that LGBTQ+ is not a disease – a definitive step towards the discontinuation of conversion therapy and improper treatment of LGBTQ+ people.
  • THE STRATEGY :
    During Pride Month in Vietnam, we started the campaign with a social experiment challenging bigots in the workplace and schools, arming volunteers in the LGBTQ+ community with sick leave, which they used to confront their superiors’ and teachers’ bigotry, secretly capturing their reactions to expose their homophobia and conflicting double standards. These reactions were then spread on social media to get online communities reacting. Many experts from the medical field and the academe weighed in to provide expert opinion and more importantly, education.

    To make a tangible impact, the campaign led the community and its newly-found allies to petition local health authorities to release a definitive statement debunking this misguided belief. All of this put a giant step in discontinuing pathologization, conversion therapy and improper treatment of LGBTQ+ people – for the first time ever in Vietnam history.

    Armed with this affirmation, iSEE will approach leaders of corporations and educational institutions to affect change on the ground.
  • THE EXECUTION :
    Week 1 & 2
    BUILD HYPE
    We launched our social experiment video on social media: “Leave with Pride – What happens when being LGBTQ+ is a disease?”, to bring the issue to light. This triggered social users to discuss the stigma and discrimination caused by the prejudice of LGBTQ+ being a disease and led them to our petition page which encouraged local health authorities to voice up.

    Week 3 & 4
    GO MASS
    A fair number of popular local newspapers, local influencers and international associations joined the conversation. Many experts from the medical field and the academe weighed in. The petition was shared nationwide and got people of different ages and cities to sign.

    Week 5 and onwards
    AMPLIFY
    We compiled people’s signatures from the petition and presented them to the MOH and WHO in Vietnam. This got public attention from not only national media outlets but also international ones.
  • THE RESULT :
    The campaign was spread nationwide inspiring LGBTQ+ people to stand up and share their voices against the homophobic double standards.

    + Media outputs:
    28K+ personal stories shared through our petition page
    84K+ people signed our petition, which is 68% higher than the initial target. The petition was incredibly successful in a country where petitions were usually ignored and restricted by the government. The successful petition led us to many other outcomes.
    105M+ social impressions.
    35M+ people impacted.
    3,000% increase in post engagement on iSEE’s digital and social pages.

    + Target audience & End-goal outcomes:
    In a landmark event for the Vietnamese LGBTQ+ community, the World Health Organization was compelled to release an official statement categorically reaffirming that LGBTQ+ is not a disease. All of this led to the Ministry of Health releasing an official order demanding all medical workers end discriminatory treatments. A historic event in conservative Vietnam.
  • ENTRANT MUST CLEARLY INDICATE A BREAKDOWN OF THE BUDGET WHICH THE TOTAL BUDGET UNDER USD 200,000 :
    • OVERALL BUDGET: 5.5K SGD

    • BREAKDOWN OF COSTS
    - SOCIAL EXPERIMENT SETUP: 500
    - PRODUCTION: 4K
    - MEDIA COVERAGE: 1K