The Ministry of Social Affairs in the Netherlands had initiated a campaign with the objective of encouraging discussions between men and women on ways to divide their household tasks. The Ministry of Social Affairs wanted to include the Asian, African and South American Dutch as part of the target audience.
Cooperation
TransCity was asked to work on this project by the agencies Bridge and TBWA\PR Company.
Objective
Encouraging discussions between men and women in Asian, African and South American communities on the ways they could divide their household tasks. This was part of a broader campaign called ‘Mannen in de Hoofdrol’ (Men in the lead).
Choices
The choice was made not to target first generation migrants at this stage, but to focus instead on the second and third generation; youngsters who were born and raised in the Netherlands. They are yet to start to build up a family; it was thought to be easier to bring about behavioural change with new generations than with those who are already living the married life for many years. Another choice that was made was not to target the youngsters along ethnic cultural lines but to target them instead as an integral part of a broader young generation.
How
TransCity had initiated discussions on a series of ethnic and cross cultural websites, such as funx.fm, wakmi.com, turksnl.net, waterkant.net, lokum.nl, maghreb.nl and maroc.nl. Over a period of five weeks, weekly discussion topics were placed on these online discussion platforms. Topics were of course related to the household tasks of men and women:
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‘When I marry, my position at home will be the same as that of my mother!’
‘Boys do too little, girls are fed up!’
And many other discussion topics.
On FunX Radio similar discussion topics were initiated for street interviews and live talk shows. Over a period of five weeks, every week saw the introduction of a new discussion topic.
The results of these discussions were brought into a debate in the Amsterdam venue Paradiso, an event that was visited by a crowd of 450 youngster from mixed schools in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. About 100 were selected as active debaters, about 350 came to support their class mates. The name chosen for the event was Debattle, a combination of Debate and Rap Battle. Each of the three discussion rounds was kicked off by a Rap Battle between two rappers, each rapper defending one of two possible viewpoints.
The participants were a mix of youngsters with diffent ethnic cultural backgrounds; Dutch and Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese, Cape Verdean and Antillean, and many others. Amongst the rappers were famous Dutch rappers like Ali B, Raymzter, Yes R and ADHD.
Now watch TV footage of Debattle! (15 MB)
Now watch more TV footage of Debattle! (20 MB)
Results
Sharp discussions. Great enthousiasm amongst participants and audience. Heavy media exposure on ethnic, cross cultural and mainstream press. Amongst the media exposure were publications in magazines such as ZAN (Chinese), Ekin (Turkish), M’Zine (Moroccan), Pleasure (Surinamese and Antillean), Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool and Amsterdam AT5 Television, national newspapers such as De Volkskrant, public national radio and television; Radio 1 and the newsshow NOVA. The Debattle event in Amsterdam was the starting point of a series of events at different venues throughout the Netherlands.