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Ad aims to change perceptions of asylum seekers

AsylumBrisbane creative agency me&bond has designed a print advertising campaign for refugee advocacy group The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) which is designed to counter the negative stereotypes of refugees.

The campaign which features a real Afghan asylum seeker Ata who has since become an Australian citizen and carries the tagline “I am not who you think I am”.

Simon Betteridge account director with me&bond said the campaign was trying to change attitudes towards those who seek asylum in Australia.

“Together with the ASRC we realised that to change perspections in the community you need to actually some empathy to get people to put themselves in the shoes of an asylum seeker”, said Betteridge.

“Using a real asylum seeker — the guy Ata who was in the campaign — was important because he has been through the whole process of becoming a refugee and is now an Australian citizen, who is married with kids, who has been to university. He is a bit of a success story.”

The advertisement tackles a number of key perceptions around those who seek asylum in Australia such as the fear they are “terrorists” or “queue jumpers” and instead seeks to challenge them.

The full-page ad for the ASRC ran in The Age newspaper and been used on social media via the ASRC Facebook page. Within the first 24 hours, me&bond estimate that 324,000 people had seen ad and it had received 11,000 Facebook likes.Asylum

Posters of the campaign have been requested from numerous individuals and groups and it impressed one group to the point where they raised the money to place the ad in a Toowoomba newspaper.

Nic Christensen

Credits

  • Concept/copy: Tim Bond
  • Art Direction: Sean Condon
  • Photography: Damien Bredberg
  • Account Director: Simon Betteridge
  • Client: Jana Favero
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