Brutal Fruit Spritzer is the most popular alcohol brand for women in South Africa, whose platform is ‘You Belong’. It shows up by creating a sense of empowerment, along with celebration.

However, this is set against a national context of Gender-Based Violence and the highest rape statistics in the world. The incongruity between their desire for women to belong and the harsh lived reality of women in South Africa becomes stark.

Recognising this, instead of a superficial celebration for Women’s Day, Brutal Fruit Spritzer wanted to take the responsibility and opportunity to address women’s freedom in a meaningful way.

We looked at shebeens as a social space where our brand is present, but where there are also significant dangers for women. Shebeens are informal taverns in townships, where incidences of rape and sexual assault are high.

The brand formalised their ambition of making shebeens a safer place for women.

Our insight was to put the ‘she’ back in ‘shebeen’. So we created the SheBeen Rated Safe Programme. AB InBev has already begun assessing over 24000 shebeens across the country, and is rating them according to their safety for women: based on specific criteria such as increased lighting, security and staff training.

To launch this accreditation programme, we transformed an existing shebeen in Soweto, Johannesburg into the SheBeen: a women-only tavern, designed by women, curated by women

and headlined by women. Opening on National Women’s Day, 9 August, the SheBeen launched the brand’s national ambition to make all shebeens into SheBeens, in the form of the SheBeen Rated Safe Programme.

Since its inception, 750 shebeens have been SheBeen Rated Safe, which improves the safety of over 22500 women on an average night out.

Women’s Month was tactical and timely opportunity to address one of the biggest challenges facing South African women – GBV,sexual harassment and objectification in drinking establishments like taverns and shebeens.

We sought to earn PR amplification for our message around women’s safety and freedom to land it impactfully – a particularly challenging task during Women’s Month: highly-saturated with competing conversations about the issues women face in South Africa.

We needed a new angle to address women’s right to safety during this time. Requiring a substantial and thought-provoking, if not controversial, hook to grab attention and provide a compelling narrative/conversation for press to want to get involved in/want to contribute to.

Through social listening, we discovered women’s broad desire for women-only spaces in South Africa, This desire revealed their true sentiment: that only the total removal of men would allow women to enjoy social experiences free from feelings

The first step was to identify a real, meaningful way to make shebeens safer for women.

Together with AB InBev, we decided to create the SheBeen Rated Safe Programme, to rank every shebeen in South Africa according to its safety for women.

To announce this initiative, we transformed at existing shebeen in Soweto, Johannesburg into the ‘SheBeen’: a women-only tavern designed and curated by women. This bespoke pop-up activation was launched on National Women’s Day, 9 August, and ran for a month.

Specific criteria was put together to identify and rate shebeens safe for women, such as increased lighting, separate female bathrooms and staff training. AB InBev is currently rolling out the assessment of 24000 shebeens across the country, with already 750 having been SheBeen Rated Safe.

- Reach of 185 million

- PR ROI of 23:1

- 36% Share of Voice (1st in the category)

- 24000 shebeens currently being assessed

- 750 outlets are SheBeen Rated Safe since inception

- So far, increasing the safety for 22 500 women on an average night out