Between 1525 and 1866, more than 12.5 million African people were taken from their communities, loaded onto ships, brought to the West, and forced into slavery. Today, systems of oppression endure – including racialized language such as the “n word” and the slur, “Go back to Africa,” which is used every three minutes on social platforms alone.

Black & Abroad is an American travel brand serving members of the Black community. In efforts to merchandize African destinations to its target, it has found two key barriers:

1. Widespread misperceptions of Africa as a dangerous, undesirable destination.

2. Lack of representation of Black travelers in commercial travel imagery.

Our brief: Reinforce Black & Abroad’s position as a leader in redefining world experiences for the modern Black traveler.

Objectives:

Reclaim the phrase “Go Back To Africa”.

Contribute to a positive narrative around Black travel.

Build equity behind the Black & Abroad brand.

GO BACK TO AFRICA

A pan-African tourism campaign that turns a racial slur into an uplifting call to action.

We hijack hateful uses of the phrase “Go Back To Africa” as they happen on Twitter. Redact the racist context. Then use them as headlines for hyper-targeted ads for each of Africa’s 54 countries.

The ads drive to GoBackToAfrica.com – an AI-curated content hub designed to address the lack of representation in commercial travel imagery. A first-of-its-kind content platform, GoBackToAfrica.com contains 54 ever-growing galleries, organized alphabetically by African country, built with the express purpose of showing members of the Black community traveling in Africa.

The GoBackToAfrica.com content platform also powers programmatic banner ads that use interest-based targeting to connect our target with specific African countries.

TARGET

Black millennials with a propensity for travel.

THE NEEDLE-HAYSTACK PROBLEM

To address the lack of representation in mainstream travel imagery, we turned to a vast archive of travel photography: social media. The challenge was locating relevant images among this massive collection (3.2 billion images are added daily).

LOCATE AND CONTEUXTUALIZE

Our algorithm narrows the pool to a manageable number (currently 2.8 million) based on pre-defined criteria (e.g., geo-location, hashtags). Next, it applies Google Vision AI, detecting faces, objects, compositional strength, etc. The output: a pool of relevant images with contextual metadata.

Strategic pillars:

DISPLACE THE HATE

Establish a positive counterpoint that exists in the same space as it that hate is happening – social media.

REWRITE THE NARRATIVE

The tone shifts to relentless positivity. It’s where we celebrate Africa, where we draw attention to the diversity of its 54 countries, and where show aspirational images of Black travelers.

IMPLEMENTATION

NetBase to find data on the phrase “Go back to Africa”.

Acxiom for audience-based hypertargeting on Twitter.

Custom-built algorithms and APIs to collect visual data.

Google Vision A.I. to assist in sorting and understanding that data.

Acxiom for interest-based targeting of programmatic banners.

MEDIA CHANNELS AND INTEGRATION

60-second video/pre-roll – Explains campaign idea.

Paid posts on social – Realtime hate displacement.

Digital out-of-home – Redacted tweet awareness.

Programmatic banner ads – Conversion layer.

GoBackToAfrica.com – Content hub.

TIMELINE

April 8, 2019 to May 8, 2019.

SCALE

2.8 million assets ingested

14,000 selects

6,840 possible ad combinations

100s of creative elements distributed across the web

BRAND BUILDING

315% increase in brand visibility.

2x search interest in the brand.

CREATING DESIRE

60% increase in booking interest for Black & Abroad’s upcoming African trips.

88% of our audience said their interest in visiting Africa had increased.

CHANGING PERCEPTION

89% of our audience said our campaign reduced the hate from the term “go back to Africa.” 52% now feel the term is “hopeful” or “empowering.”

92% feel that they know more about what Africa has to offer.

COMMUNITY REACTION

Among members of the Black community, the response to the campaign has been virtually unanimous and positive – most clearly evidenced in the comments sections of the launch video. The most common reaction: “Dope!”

PR

“Turning white trolls into Black gold.” – AFROPUNK

“A galvanizing example of the power of words and our ability to mold their meaning.” – AdWeek