Outdoor ad: Carling Black Label: Soccer Song for Change

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Top 6: September 5th 2018

SA’s abuse rate is 5 times higher than the global average. Despite constitutional protections, gender-based violence remains widespread in our country. Carling Black Label recognised the need to acknowledge that alcohol can be part of the problem and used its status as a beacon of masculinity to challenge how men react to violence against women. With a full stadium of men drinking our product, this was the ideal platform for us to take responsibility and share a message with men that they could take home after the game. Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Cape Town

We had a choir enter the field just before kick-off and hijack SA’s national football anthem, Masambe Nono. Fans sang along with gusto, until half way through, our choir changed the lyrics to highlight the issue of women abuse.

People took our message to the streets and marched to parliament. We responded by changing our iconic packaging and partnering with government to set up a special parliament to tackle GBV.

The non-traditional platform helped us not only to talk directly to a sold-out stadium of men, but with the game being highly televised and fans documenting and sharing their stadium experience, our message reached a greater audience than the 2010 World Cup Football opening ceremony and match.

In this way, South Africa’s biggest beer brand, Carling Black label, went from the no.1 excuse for abuse, to the no.1 champion against it - mobilising men to take action against women abuse and always stand up for what is right.

This resulted in brand mentions increasing by 823%, R31.8 million of earned media, 415 million impressions, and a total reach of 45 million. And we even got a shout out from Drogba for our efforts.

This campaign is now being rolled out in 5 other countries while the government continues to debate GBV legislation in parliament.