OBJECTIVE: Harness the power of social media to raise awareness and empower the API (Asian/Pacific Islander) community and their allies to speak out against racism.

BACKGROUND:

Racism against APIs is not a new problem, but it’s been exacerbated by the media and politicians using racist rhetoric to label the virus. As a result, APIs are now facing a dual pandemic: a heightened fear of racist abuse, from verbal to physical assault, on top of all the anxiety of living through an ongoing pandemic.

Police department statistics across major U.S. cities found a nearly 150% surge in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020, while overall hate crimes fell by 7%.

Love Has No Labels, Ad Council's initiative created to promote acceptance of people regardless of their background, gender, sexual orientation, age or abilities, wanted to take a clear stance and lead the charge in shattering the deafening silence surrounding anti-API racism.

FIGHT THE VIRUS. FIGHT THE BIAS.

Let's reveal the humanity behind the mask to speak out against anti-API racism.

Facebook and Instagram campaign, created by Emmy-winning director Alan Yang, features diverse API individuals that speak out about how they are part of the solution, not the problem—revealing the humanity behind the mask to speak out against the discrimination and stigma impacting the community. Additionally, through a custom AR effect we empowered the API community and the allies to actively contribute to the campaign and raise awareness that hate crimes were rising at unacceptable levels.

The campaign directs audiences to lovehasnolabels.com/fightvirusbias, which features comprehensive resources for users to get a deeper understanding of the discrimination facing the API community – and how they can be part of the solution.

We worked with not-for-profit organizations and community leaders like Gold House, Cindy Gallop and Chinatown Partnership to understand the unique challenges that APIs were facing. We learned that APIs were using Facebook and Instagram to share news and mobilize on the issue.

It was clear that there was a need for unified messaging and tools to spark conversation and meaningful change. So we enlisted allies and the entire population, running our campaign on Facebook:

1) “Armchair Supporters” who deeply cares about the well-being of others and seek clear guidance on how to help. This translated into people living in the U.S., 18+, and have a strong affinity for interest areas like empowerment, equality, and racial justice & social change.

2) The support from this audience seeded into our fairly broad, second audience – people living in the U.S. who are 18+ to ensure the campaign reached as many as possible.

TIMELINE: July 2020~Today (briefed in March 2020)

PLACEMENT: Facebook & Instagram / TVC

The campaign was activated and amplified by API influencers, celebrities, and allies like Sandra Oh, David Chang, David Schwimmer & Tiffany Hsu.

We scaled our impact by using our platform to feature and amplify a number of industry partners that are working in various capacities to address bias and discrimination against the API community: Act to Change, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Wash the Hate, The All of Us Movement, Stop AAPI Hate, Make Noise Today, Racism Is Contagious, Respond2Racism, Send Chinatown Love, Call it COVID19.

The integrated campaign received donated media, digital and social support from partners including: 3AF (Asian American Advertising Federation), AAAZA, Admerasia, AIMM (Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing), Barbarian, Constellation Agency, Edelman, Facebook, interTREND, IW Group, Porter Novelli, Publicis Media, Ready State, Ruder Finn, and VaynerMedia.

With nearly 1.4 million video views and 30% awareness among U.S. adults, the Fight the Virus. Fight the Bias campaign is driving action: on launch day, we saw 11,316 sessions on the site, with visitors educating themselves about key stats about the API community and learning how to take action. The work contributed to a significant increase in Love Has No Labels brand awareness, from 23% to 30% in June. This is the highest level since December of 2018.

- 47.4m people reached

- 3.2 million total views

- 9.4 billion impressions

- 9.5k impressions driven by the AR effect.

Additionally, the campaign received great press coverage with 60 press hits from ABC News, NBC News, NowThis, Yahoo, and most notably a dedicated article in The New York Times.