Ogilvy's Intrusive Ads Give Men a #MeToo Moment

If you're a woman, being sexually harassed while walking down the street, sitting on a bus or standing on a packed train is, unfortunately, a situation that's all too familiar. 

So familiar, in fact, that a staggering 100% of French women claim to have been sexually harassed on public transport at least once in their lives.

Be it a chorus of wolf-whistles or a repeated request for your mobile number, just going about your daily business as a woman becomes an irritating, exhausting and occasionally frightening affair. Yet it's a situation that many men find difficult to understand and empathise with - despite the rise of the #MeToo movement.  

To help raise awareness of the issue and put men in women's shoes for a day, Ogilvy & Mather Paris has teamed up with French anti-harassment associations Stop Harcèlement de Rue, Les Effronté.es and Paye Ta Shnek on a clever interactive campaign which harnesses the intrusive power of a banner advert - annoying at the best of times - and turns it into a harassment tool. 

Running from 7-8 March across France, the campaign sees male-only targeted banners invade mobile screens when their owners are browsing popular sites including GQ, Konbini, SoFoot, Libération, BFM and L’Express. Starting with an innocuous request for a phone number, the pop-up ads become increasingly insistent, then insulting, no matter how many times they are closed down.

Eventually, a final message appears, inviting the mobile user to use his voice by tweeting and posting on Facebook the words #NonC’estNon (#NoMeansNo).

“It is always difficult to communicate a personal experience such as harassment," explains creative director David Raichman. "This is why we wanted to find a unique way for men to face reality of sexual harassment."