Unstereotype Alliance is an action platform that seeks, with their 240 members, to use the advertising industry as a force for good by addressing harmful stereotypes in advertising. According to research the representation of men and masculinity has not changed much in the last 75 years however, men have changed. What they now think makes them successful is mismatched in how advertisers are portraying success. This mismatch is affecting young men by creating a rapid decline in their mental health.

Unstereotype Alliance needs a strategy that presents a more diverse and contemporary understanding of success to young men. A strategy that reaches Gen Z Men globally and encourages them to reimagine their feelings towards success as realistic.

99% of Gen Z skip ads and over 60% use ad blockers (source: The Guardian), we can’t just rely on a strategy through advertising, we need a strategy that transcends advertising.

Within minutes of joining social platforms, men are bombarded with regressive content without having search or engaged with it (source: Dublin City University).

Our insight - For young men, the popular opinion is not publicised.

It’s not that content with diverse views of success isn’t being made, it’s that it is not being seen. Our opportunity – To show young men what real men look like, not what reel men look like by rewriting how young men are seen, by rewriting the algorithms that make people prolific.

Enter the Algo Accord, a historic agreement with the most powerful algorithm interspersing diversity into TikTok’s #FYP highlighting the diversity in success for young men.

Help them discover real men: Launch with in-app pop-up letting young men know their content is about to change, prompting them to learn about the cause.

As they scroll, young men will be intentionally served a content from diverse perspectives on topics they consume to see their version of success and highlight the different views on masculinity, watermarked with the UA logo to maintain awareness and allowing clicks to learn more.

Correct their curation: Helping young men to train their own algorithm by curating lists of content and amplifying across above the line channels where young men are active including digital audio, social and video platforms.

Challenge others to pledge – we’ll call out other social platforms. Challenging them to sign The Algo Accord, changing their algorithm to help create more happy and healthy young men by placing media within proximity to their offices, generating earned media attention in the process.

The campaign will launch globally through the integration of the Algo accord in TikTok across 3 pillars :

1. Help them discover real men – Launching the Algo Accord first across TikTok only, to be always on without being paid.

2. Correct their curation – Sponsored playlists encouraging discovery of diverse views on success, social carousels of prominent, positive figures for young men, inspiring them to follow their own vision of success and digital video driving towards a custom landing page to learn more about the Algo accord.

3. Challenge others to pledge – We’ll activate a 2-month long paid campaign to challenge other big tech to pledge, across pointed creative within print and outdoor within close proximity to their offices while.

By transcending advertising and integrating within content itself, we’ll reach TikTok’s 600 million Gen Z users for ~23 minutes a day without paying for a single impression.