York University’s Centre for Human Rights has launched a campus poster campaign urging students to respect differences of opinion and refrain from hurtful language while engaged in free debate.
The posters, developed by Toronto’s Doug Agency, depict people in profile view, their faces contorted into a screaming expression. In one poster, a bullet is shown emerging from the person’s mouth, while another shows a grenade and a third version a bomb.
Each variation includes a string of copy linking the open mouths to the weapons. The “bullet” add includes the copy, “Words have a way of hitting innocent bystanders,” the “grenade” ad features the line “A war of words is still a war” and the bomb execution reads, “It’s not just what you say but how you say it.”
All three creative pieces include the tag line, “Share ideas. Respect differences.”
Noel Badiou, director of York’s Centre for Human Rights, said the inspiration for the campaign evolved out of the increasingly heated exchanges between student groups in the past several years.
“It’s really about increased disruption on campus, where people are shouting ‘freedom of expression’ but not really understanding what that means,” said Badiou. “On a university campus, it’s all about learning and being exposed to differences and things that are not necessarily comfortable.
“At a university campus, we encourage freedom of expression in a way that creates dialogue and isn’t just about two groups shouting at each other, which is starting to be a trend around certain issues.”
Badiou added that his organization showed the posters to several students in the early stages of their development to ensure that they would make an impact.
“It’s very important that the students become involved early on, so that it becomes something they have some input and say in,” said Badiou. “Most of the students who saw them prior to this October loved them. They really loved the message and felt like it spoke to them.”
Like Badiou, Mike Welling, president of the Doug Agency–York’s agency of record–said the creative delivers its message with a tone appropriate for the student target audience.
“The real challenge here was less about the intended message and more about conveying it in a way that the audience will stop and notice,” said Welling.
The posters hit the York campus last Monday, coinciding with the school’s inaugural “Inclusion Day,” an event created by the Centre for Human Rights to address issues of free speech and respectful debate.
