THE UNFILTERED HISTORY TOUR

Grand Prix

Case Film

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TitleTHE UNFILTERED HISTORY TOUR
BrandVICE WORLD NEWS
Product / ServiceVICE WORLD NEWS
CategoryB04. Content Creation & Production
EntrantDENTSU WEBCHUTNEY Bengaluru, INDIA
Idea Creation DENTSU WEBCHUTNEY Bengaluru, INDIA
Idea Creation 2 DENTSU WEBCHUTNEY Mumbai, INDIA
Idea Creation 3 DENTSU WEBCHUTNEY Gurgaon, INDIA
Media Placement DENTSU WEBCHUTNEY Mumbai, INDIA
PR DENTSU WEBCHUTNEY Mumbai, INDIA
Production DENTSU WEBCHUTNEY Mumbai, INDIA
Production 2 PIXEL PARTY New Delhi, INDIA
Production 3 VICE MEDIA London, UNITED KINGDOM

Credits

Name Company Position
Gautam Reghunath Dentsu Creative Head of Business
Aditiya P.G. Dentsu Creative Head of Creative
Gurbaksh Singh Dentsu Creative Innovation Lead
Binaifer Dulani Dentsu Creative Creative Lead
Karishma Changroth Dentsu Creative Project Lead
Ashwin Palkar Dentsu Creative Creative Head - Art
Kushal Lalvani Dentsu Creative Copy Lead
Aabhaas Shreshtha Dentsu Creative Creative - Art
Anjali Thomas Dentsu Creative Account Manager
Geetika Sood Dentsu Creative Creative Producer
Niranjan Raghu Dentsu Creative Video Lead
Manish Joseph Dentsu Creative Motion Graphics Lead
Ishtaarth Dalmia Dentsu Creative Strategist
Ananya S Rao Dentsu Creative Junior Strategist
Meghna Yesudas Dentsu Creative Social Lead
Shaleen Wadhwana Consultant Research Consultant
Shreya Vivek Arora Dentsu Creative Senior Art Director
Tanya Paul Dentsu Creative Senior Art Director
Vignesh Praveen Dentsu Creative Animation and Video Production
Manasi Sheth Dentsu Creative Art Director
Rakesh Bairwa Dentsu Creative Lead Web Developer
Rahul Sharma Dentsu Creative Web Developer
Gerson Pearson Dentsu Creative Video and Mixed Reality Producer
Priyanka Borah Dentsu Creative Business Lead
Stuti Sudha Dentsu Creative Copywriter
Amey Chodankar Dentsu Creative Auxiliary Art Support
Karthik Nambiar Dentsu Creative Creative - Art
Farishte Irani Dentsu Creative Auxiliary Copy Support
Vaishakh Kolaprath Dentsu Creative Art Director
Ronak Chugh Rooted Films LLP Films
Sameer Rahat Consultant Music Composer
Jeremy Pinto Vivi5 Studios Motion Graphics
Manas Sharma Vivi5 Studios Motion Graphics
Mehul Mahicha Vivi5 Studios Motion Graphics
Ateesh Chattopadhyay Consultant .
Prashant Bhikadia Consultant .
Sachin Ghanekar Consultant .
Emi Eleode Consultant .
Shanel Moraes Consultant .

Why is this work relevant for PR?

The Unfiltered History Tour is a guerrilla tour of the British Museum’s disputed artefacts using Augmented Reality through Instagram filters. From Egyptologists, to the seventh descendant of the Gweagal Shield - 10 experts and underrepresented colonial voices, play tour guide in narrating the true histories of artefacts from their homelands. Within its first month, personalities like Shashi Tharoor, Marc Fennell championed the campaign. On TikTok, users created videos of the tour generating 1.3 million earned views. The campaign was covered by major competitors, including The Guardian, BBC and Hyperallergic.

Background

The British Museum is the world’s largest receiver of stolen goods with over 8 million objects - that’s a lot of potentially looted artefacts. But for centuries, we’ve only heard the imperialist version of how they got there. An equitable environment can only be created when silenced voices express the intergenerational trauma caused by colonial loot. Brief To place VICE World News at the forefront of conversations around colonialism and challenge dominant cultures by opening up dialogue to countries around the world to create a balance in the way history has been told. Objectives 1. Give a platform to underrepresented minority voices to share their accounts of artefacts that belong to their country. 2. Re-ignite the ongoing conversation on repatriation and postcolonialism with VICE championing marginalised voices. 3. Educate young people about the untold side of history using a tool as accessible as Instagram filters to tell unfiltered stories.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

The Unfiltered History Tour is an unauthorised, interactive tour of the British Museum where visitors can scan disputed artefacts and see them being teleported back in time to their home countries. Using Augmented Reality to showcase first-ever visual depictions of scenes of colonial crime, we created Instagram Filters that scan 10 heavily disputed artefacts currently on display at the museum. From the seventh descendant of the Gweagal Shield, to the Governor of Rapa Nui - 10 experts play tour guide in narrating the true histories of artefacts from their homelands. Worldwide, people enjoyed extended podcasts and immersive experiences in the voices of the same experts. Marginalised voices, and their experiences became the narrative of the campaign, overshadowing the Museum’s Imperial narrative. The Tour was developed to reach out to young Britons and ignite conversation on platforms that they know best.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

The British Museum’s one-sided, imperialist narrative could only be tackled with authenticity. So, expert voices from 10 countries - Jamaica, Easter Island, Egypt, Greece, Nigeria, Ghana, Iraq, India, China and Australia - were brought on to fill the gaps in the lopsided mainstream narrative. This would enable us to gather traction across a global youth audience, including the 10 home countries these artefacts belonged to. Our objective was to orchestrate PR in a way that starts the fire around the campaign as a fusion of art, technology, and audacity to rewrite history. A project clearly greater than the sum of its parts. Publications that catered to a wide field - ranging from tech, political history, art history, design and culture were shortlisted to amplify the key message - unfilter a side of history never taught before in textbooks or anywhere else.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

Toolkits with quotes from the marginalized communities and native experts were shared with history and art history publication houses and editors to amplify their voices. Prototypes developed by the AR technicians, test links, integration of LiDAR to create an AR filter that blends live satellite data was shared as a playbook for other developers for tech communities to amplify.A playbook that comprises the political climate of the different home countries, the most important issues and discourses within the home countries, and busting the misinformation narrative perpetuated by the British Museum was shared to ensure dominant culture could be challenged. The narrative was consciously built to give a platform to underrepresented voices to balance the narrative and fill in the gaps, rather than target any reputed public institution.

List the results (30% of vote)

In its first month, the campaign was endorsed by former UN Under-Secretary General Shashi Tharoor, award-winning journalist Marc Fennel, the British Committee, amongst others. The campaign has got coverage in each of the home countries of the artefacts and by publications in the UK helping it reach the British public. We saw earned media worth $631K with coverage from competitor publications like the Guardian, BBC, The Drum, Hyperallergic, Financial Express among many others. “touching and exceptionally interesting. makes an excellent case. There is much non-romantic true love for them all, and it’s hard to argue that these works should not be returned to where they resonate the most.” - The Guardian “No longer will visitors remember Instagram filters as the tech that added dog ears/cat whiskers to their face. They’d remember it as the tech that taught them about colonialism.” - Hyperallergic “the stories behind 10 of these objects, told by people from the countries they were removed from” - Spotify Podcasts According to a 2014 survey, 59% of Britons were proud of the British Empire. In a poll conducted weeks after the Tour was launched, 59% of Britons said they believed the Parthenon Marbles (part of the Tour) belonged in Greece. 32 million social impressions 40% rise in TikTok followers owing to Tik Tokers sharing their Tour experience videos. 49% increase in total Instagram impressions 21,583 podcast downloads and 5,200 filter uses (in 30 days)

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