A diversity-focused business resource group within Horizon Media representing employees with Asian heritage is launching a sweeping new public service campaign in support of Asian American communities that have long had to deal with discrimination in silence.
Dubbed “We Are,” the initiative from the group, called Horizon East, spans out-of-home, radio, social and digital, and taps a wide range of high-profile ad partners to unveil the campaign across donated media in the U.S. and Canada. The open-ended title lends itself to various strains of the campaign, which all begin with the phrase, and exemplifies the feeling in many Asian communities, such as “We are not invisible” and “We are hurting.”
“As we all know, there’s way too much hate out there against many communities,” Bill Koenigsberg, Horizon Media’s president, CEO and founder, said during a virtual presentation to prospective media partners yesterday. The idea to create the “We Are” campaign arose following a request last month to send a memo acknowledging the recent spike in anti-Asian violence, he added.
There have been nearly 3,800 “hate incidents,” including verbal harassment and physical assault, reported against Asian people in the U.S. since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Stop AAPI Hate.
The campaign’s out-of-home component—“We Are Not Invisible”—has drawn more than a dozen media partners including Outfront, Clear Channel and Big Outdoor with digital and static billboards first rolling out in Atlanta and Boston last week, followed by other major U.S. markets including New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco this week.
Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton are slated to host the bulk of the campaign’s Canadian OOH presence.
Out-of-home elements will display slogans like “Racism is not an opinion” and “I’d never hit your grandma” alongside the growing hashtag #StopAsianHate, and will be based on plain-color backgrounds that reflect the diversity of Asian skin tones.