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Jaywing is a campaigns and communications agency which worked with the VRU on the Men Step Up campaign, which aims to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls through promoting positive male role models and behaviours, and the role men can play in tackling the issue.

We were privileged to have the opportunity to work on this project in partnership with the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit. Supporting local communities with a profound and meaningful message that creates positive behavioural change is the kind of work we thrive in doing.

For this campaign we had a clear objective and outcome – to get men over 30 in South Yorkshire to visit an educational campaign landing page to let them know how they can have a positive impact by being allies to women and girls, helping to reduce the violence they face all too often.

To do this we had a number of considerations to iron out before the campaign could come to fruition:

  • The scale of the problem women and girls are facing
  • Finding a way to change our audience’s behaviour
  • Defining a strategic insight
  • Bringing the campaign to life visually

The scale of the problem was huge, showing that 1 in 5 women are victims of violence in some form. The visceral nature of the statistics led us to believe that to change behaviour, we needed a provocative response to challenge passive attitudes, capture hearts and minds, and really drive behavioural change.

Keeping that in mind, our strategy and creative team produced Men Step Up, an idea born from the thinking that men see ‘stepping up’ as a positive in most areas of life, such as:

  • Stepping up as a role model as a dad
  • Stepping up to score a penalty
  • Stepping up to be there for a mate in need

Fostering that mentality and call to action, Men Step Up is our approach to create the positive behavioural change we are looking to instigate.

In developing the creative idea, we thought it was important to tell real women’s stories. Searching community forums, social media, and speaking to women in our lives who we knew had been subjected to violence, the team put together a range of relatable narratives.

We used the 5Ds of Bystander Intervention to anchor each story and give a clear solution on how men could step up and action be taken.

Typographic inspiration was drawn from political posters to convey a serious but clear message, where bold typography was chosen for each of the executions.

With the campaign now launched, we are excited to see how the activity resonates with our audience and the subsequent behavioural impact.