Mayor of London Sadiq Khan isn’t the most popular at the moment – his ULEZ scheme to ban high-emitting older cars is widely blamed for Labour failing to win the recent Uxbridge by-election, and his new anti-sexism ‘Say Maaate to a Mate’ campaign from Ogilvy has the usual range of pundits (most of whom you’ve never heard of before) fulminating from different points of the compass.
It’s interactive so you’re supposed to join in.
You could, of course, argue that the fuss is exactly what’s intended: amplifying the impact although client and agency would doubtless deny it.
As you’d expect, it’s been researched up hill and down dale. David Fanner from Ogilvy’s Behavioural Science Practice says: “We spent hours observing and interacting with men in male-dominated spaces – from bars and barbershops to the barbell section of gyms – in order to truly understand the male psyche in relation to tackling misogyny and sexism. This diligence enabled us to uncover a completely new approach to the fight against misogyny.
“We found that men don’t want to shame or ostracise their mates, they want to call them out with respect and levity. This insight sits at the heart of our ‘Say Maaate’ approach which we are confident will empower men to challenge inappropriate behaviour in an effective way. A solution like this can only be truly successful when you have the rigour behind it.”
Not sure if rigour is the right word but you get the point. Mayor Khan may be an annoying so-and-so on occasions (Transport for London’s ‘See it, Say it, Sort it’ against bombs on the Tube – yes, it thinks there are some – has made travelling in London even more of an ordeal.)
Ogilvy has made a pretty good fist of it. The noiseboxes on GB News were never going to like it (their job is not to like anything, obs.)
MAA creative scale: 6.
