Over the past 75 years the depiction of women in advertising and media has progressed, while the depiction of men has stagnated and regressed. A succesful man is still portrayed as a guy in a suit - or naked with an 8-pack - who clearly has lots of riches and women flocking around him.

But outdated and stereotypical representation of masculinity in advertising and media has a severely damaging impact on the mental health, feelings of adequacy and sense of success in young boys and men.

The brief is to redefine the old school narrative and give Gen Z a more diverse understanding of success for men.

Our objective is therefore to kill the very outdated depiction of The Succesful Man, that we're so used to (and sick of) seeing in advertising.

With Gen Z'ers you have 1.3 seconds.

So we portrayed the succesful man that’s being glorified in the podcasts of the manosphere - the succesful man they’ve seen in every ad ever - with an invitation to kill him with us.

We did this to demand attention and create stop effect.

Upon further reading, we let Gen Z know the meaning behind our invitation: that feelings of inadequacy caused by the depiction of men in advertising and media totally is a thing - and that they’re not alone. Because Unstereotype Alliance is fighting to kill these exact depictions and stereotypes from advertising.

When choosing our visual we tapped into the number one masculine advertising cliché: white, fit, able-bodied man wears perfectly tailored suit and expensive watch. Hot woman, nice cars to really emphasize how the portrayal of men and male succes in ads is... so one-sided, outdated and borderline satirical.

Gen z'ers are known for both their short attention span and their dedication to social and politcal issues. So our work has to demand their attention and get them on board with our cause, bringing them together all while widening the aperture of what success looks like.

What succes might look like is individual, and there is no such thing as an authentic one-size-fits-all depiction of succes. That is actually the whole point of our campaign. So instead of showing boys and young men what version of succes to dream of, we decided to show them, what version they don't have to dream of. Letting them decide for themselves, what succes means to them with the invitation to finally kill the advertising archetype of a successful man and what he stands for: an outdated and stereotypical representation of masculinity.

In our work, we highlight how anyone who feels that their mental health is declining because of advertising and media is not struggeling alone, making Unstereotype Alliance an ally of Gen Z. We challenge the regressive masculine archetypical depictions of men used in advertising, and inspire to eliminate the notion that being a successful man looks a certain way.

To disrupt the status quo, one has to be a little bit loud. But not to worry, we're not actually gonna kill anyone.