| Title | BURN RACIST GIGA |
| Brand | ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE ITALIA |
| Product/Service | ROLLING STONE |
| Category |
A06. Data / Insight |
|
Entrant
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SERVICEPLAN ITALIA Milan, ITALY
|
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Idea Creation
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SERVICEPLAN ITALIA Milan, ITALY
|
|
Media Placement
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MEDIAPLUS Milan, ITALY
|
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Production
|
OLTREFARGO Turin, ITALY
|
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Additional Company
|
PLAN.NET Milan, ITALY
|
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Additional Company 2
|
DEVELON Altavilla, ITALY
|
Credits
| Oliver Palmer |
Serviceplan Italia Srl |
Executive Creative Director |
| Pas Frezza |
Serviceplan Italia Srl |
Creative Director |
| Luca Iannucci |
Serviceplan Italia Srl |
Creative Director |
| Max Bratti |
Serviceplan Italia Srl |
Art Director |
| Matteo Busti |
Plan.Net Italia |
Art Director |
| Vittorio Giannotti |
Serviceplan Italia Srl |
Copywriter |
| Franz Röppischer |
Serviceplan Munich |
Innovation creative director |
| Lorenz Langgartner |
Serviceplan Munich |
Innovation creative director |
Background
Italy has been flooded by a deluge of racism in recent years. It is particularly evident on social media platforms where videos, comments and attitudes expressing increasing hostility towards immigrants can be found on far-right sites worryingly, the number of videos with racist content, xenophobic comments and hostile attitudes aimed at immigrants are on the rise, and have made social networks an increasingly toxic environment since xenophobes only need an internet connection to share their extremist views.
Rolling Stone Italia has previously taken a stand against racism with its iconic, Noi non stiamo con Salvini cover, a special issue to combat the anti-immigrant views of Italy’s far-right ex-Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini.
Describe the creative idea
In an unprecedented way, the Burn Racist Giga campaign blocked the data of extremist viewing far-right materials.
Describe the strategy
The campaign was designed to target the main tool used by racist to spread anti-immigrant views online in Italy, their data connection. It should be stressed that in Italy 98% of people have limited mobile data, on average 6 Gigabytes for month.
Describe the execution
RS lured racists to a fake site full of popular racist videos. The mini-site, called riprendiamocisubito.com, was containing videos with secretly increased file size. Watching these videos burns up to 40 times more mobile data. The website was advertised on social media, through a Facebook campaign, targeting far-right groups and was only available on a smartphone o tablet, and users could only view the videos using their data connection (they could not use Wi-Fi). It should be stressed that in Italy 98% of people have limited mobile data, on average 6 Gigabytes for month. So, the custom video player and its data rate massively increased allowed us to burn as much data as fast as possible, burning through viewers’ data in minutes and taking them offline.
List the results
The hacktivism kept hundreds of racist away from social media platforms for a significant period, burning through over 5000 gigabytes and cleaning up the Internet by taking more than 800 racist offline. Without their monthly data, far-right extremist was not able to get back online and spew their hate with extremist comments and videos. When the stunt was revealed, Rolling Stone Magazine was celebrated all over italian social media, receiving 28 MIO contacts and increasing its traffic over 1500%.