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#unwanted

Women’s Rights centre Montenegro

Issue 48 | September 2018

Agency

McCann Podgorica and McCann Belgrade

Creative Team

Creative Creative Director Jana Savic´ Rastovac Creative Director Sandra Vujovic´ Associate Creative Director Lidija Milovanovic´ Senior Designer Sas?a Jovic´evic´ Digital Creative Director Vladimir C´osic´

Date

June 2018

Background

Montenegro was a fiercely patriarchal society in which sons are more valued than daughters. Often, women in the country would decide to have an abortion if prenatal tests indicated they were carrying a girl.

This practice changed the demographic of the country to such an extent that a UN report found Montenegro to be in the top tier of countries with an imbalance between males and females. In fact, with a population of 620,000, it is estimated that the country is short of 3,000 women reproductive age already and this will get worse with as many as 10,000 more men than women by 2025.

Idea

A song was written and performed by Montenegrin pop star Katarina Bogic´evic´ at the national finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. It became the anthem for a movement to apply pressure on the government to change legislation in order to prevent the abuse of prenatal testing leading to selective abortion.

Ironically, “Unwanted”, the song, did not win, beaten into second place by a male singer, who sang about love.

Results

In under 48 hours, over 10,000 Montenegrins had placed a frame with the message “You are #WANTED to me” on their Facebook profile pics.

A wave of support led to a petition being presented to the government and the Vice President was quoted as saying, “This campaign means a step forward in the emancipation of Montenegrin society.”

Our Thoughts

This is mediajacking on an impressive scale. How do you get a large TV audience for your message when you don’t have any money? How do you get a large audience for a message that many would avoid if they could? You could ask, how do you get a large audience, given that digital channels have eaten away at TV audience sizes everywhere, including Montenegro?

The answer is, turn your message into a song and compete for a spot in the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Also, how fascinating that similar ideas so often occur completely independently of each other. See pages 54-55, where Reporters Without Borders also used song to get across messages the authorities wanted no-one to hear. Synchronicity is a subject worth an article in the next issue of Directory, perhaps?