The Racism Pandemic

As part of the BBH Barn internship passion project, we were briefed to do something good, famously. My team launched a campaign that tackled the issue of inherited racial biases, which is one of the root causes of racism in Singapore.

The Issue.

3 in 5 Singaporeans believe racial harmony is an important part of their national identity. However, this doesn’t mean racism doesn’t exist.

The Insight.

As many Singaporeans learn about stereotypes from parents and teachers, there is a vicious cycle of inherited racial bias.

THE ZIG

Everyone wants to change things for this generation.

With the spike in racial incidents in 2020, many platforms emerged for minorities to share their voice, but it’s be difficult to change things when prejudices are deeply ingrained

THE ZAG

Change things for the next generation.

By tackling a root cause of racism that will carry through to the future.

So we targeted young Singaporean parents and parents-to-be who are in a critical position to pass - or not - racial biases down to their kids.

The Idea: The Racism Pandemic

Both Covid 19 and racism are widespread, viral and difficult to eradicate. As we want to prevent young parents from passing down racial biases to the next generation, our campaign aims to empower them to #bethecircuitbreaker in this racism pandemic.

We launched The Racism Pandemic on Instagram using the language of the zeitgeist to talk about racism, and provide resources for young parents to play an active role in educating their kids on race.

We drafted a pledge which parents could customise to how they would educate their child on race and encouraged them to share it on Instagram.

Minister of Parliament Louis Ng and well known parent influencer Dawn Sim posted pledges on their Instagram using the hashtag #bethecircuitbreaker.