Situation: Ajax players, admired by millions as role models and not just footballers, receive up to 1500 hate messages monthly. Social hate, manifesting as threats and discrimination online, has become rampant, urging Ajax to draw a line against such aggression, distinguishing it from offline discrimination and violence.

Brief: Ajax will harness its influence to confront social hate, spotlighting the issue's gravity through a PR-oriented approach. The brief is to create a creative campaign that focuses on shaping societal discourse, emphasizing the impact on victims, and advocating for change without overstepping the club's role in the broader societal context.

Objectives: 1) The campaign aims to boost user intervention against social hate post-exposure and 2) fuel a societal conversation about its eradication, targeting an organic reach of 50 million, 50+ publications, and 7.5 million Ajax content impressions.

AFC Ajax's #SilenceSocialHate campaign creatively leveraged the universal symbol for silence—three dots—also used for reporting social media abuse, to encourage action against online hate. By integrating this symbol into their campaign across online, offline platforms, and special matchday shirts, Ajax united fans, players, and the public in a powerful call to report and reduce social hate.

The campaign's focal point was Matchday stunt on December 9, 2023, ensuring a concentrated effort to raise awareness within a short timeframe. Both men’s and women’s teams of Ajax played an official league game wearing the special jersey, earning the immediate attention and coverage of football related and mainstream media.

By encouraging the silent majority to act against social hate, the club initiated a broader societal discussion, leveraging the respect athletes command. Ajax set a powerful example of vulnerability and openness in their content, making the campaign not only credible but deeply impactful.

Ajax's strategy was based on the insight that 82% of Dutch people didn’t like seeing hateful messages online, but only 25% did anything against it. Creating a real risk that future generations start to think that social hate is normal.

Targeting a demographic deeply affected by online hate, particularly Gen-Z, but also players, staff and the platforms themselves, the club leveraged its substantial influence across key social platforms, where its audience spends significant time.

Ajax and its players use their influence to address social hate, highlighting the impact on both the players and the wider audience. The approach was multifaceted: raising awareness through high-visibility actions like wearing special matchday shirts, and empowering individuals to report hate speech through impactful social content with players.

This strategy highlighted the issue's urgency and provided clear, actionable steps for the community, encouraging a shift from passive observation to active participation in combating social hate.

Implementation: The AFC Ajax #SilenceSocialHate campaign integrated visual symbols and digital platforms. Special shirts featuring the three dots symbol for silence against social hate were worn by Ajax’ - both women and men - teams. This symbolism extended to ESPN analysts' desks and Johan Cruijff ArenA screens, reinforcing the message.

Timeline: The campaign's focal point was Matchday on December 9, 2023, ensuring a concentrated effort to raise awareness within a short timeframe.

Placement: Key placements included on-field apparel, in-stadium advertising, and digital spaces like the campaign-specific website (ajax.nl/socialhate) and social media. This strategic choice of platforms ensured a cohesive message across all fan interactions.

Scale: The campaign's scale was extensive, reaching audiences both in the stadium and online. By leveraging the club's social media presence and the participation of players and club sponsors, the campaign aimed for and achieved a wide impact, encouraging a collective action against social hate.

Ajax and its players spread a powerful message about social responsibility that resonated in society. But the most important thing? The campaign ensured that more Dutch people take action to combat social hate.

Research (Markteffect) showed significant shifts in behavior amongst the Dutch audience, with intentions to report social hate rising by 16%, blocking the writers by 11% and asking to delete the messages by 8%. Moreover, it’s become much clearer why reporting is important: +16%.

#SilenceSocialHate significantly outperformed its objectives, reaching an impressive 584.5 million organically, a 1170% increase, with impactful media coverage across 355 publications (+710%) - positive and on message, and 114.5 million (+1527%) Ajax content impressions.

Within a matter of hours after launch, the campaign dominated all major Dutch media, both football oriented as well as mainstream media. A national debate on how to combat social hate erupted in talk shows, columns and opinion pieces in newspapers, podcasts and on Reddit.

Major global news media like Sky, Clarin, and Gazzetta dello Sport covered the story through their online channels. This campaign further received support by sports organizations (such as Olympic TeamNL, UEFA and leading ProCycling Team Jumbo-Visma), politicians and celebrities (such as Justice-Minister Dilan Yesilgõz and Real Madrid player Jude Bellingham) and rival clubs (PSV and Olympique Marseille).

Achieving an earned media value of €15,837,868 without any paid media, the campaign demonstrated remarkable success in fostering community action against social hate and enhancing Ajax's brand perception as a proactive leader in social responsibility.