NATIVE VML wanted to take the opportunity to create a healthy conversation on social media about the dehumanising connotations of the word refugee: to remind the world that these people are human beings with real fears, hopes and dreams.
The agency partnered with People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP), a community-based, grassroots non-profit organisation devoted to protecting and promoting the rights of asylum seekers and immigrants, to bring the campaign to life.
“We built a Twitter bot with one simple function, to find tweets that use the word 'refugee', replace it with the phrase 'human being' and then retweet the revised tweet back to the original Twitter handle that posted the tweet,” explains Ryan McManus, executive creative director at NATIVE VML.
"We are pleased that NATIVE VML is serving and assisting refugees around the world, and PASSOP supports the notion of giving refugees back their humanity, says Bernard Toyambi, executive director at PASSOP.
McManus says; "Thanks to the instant nature of Twitter, we were able to continue the conversation as it happens, while it’s top of mind, which makes it massively impactful and relevant."