The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2019
Black & Abroad turns the slur 'Go Back to Africa' into a travel invitation — Cannes GP
A Black travel brand intercepts the racist phrase online and answers it with AI-curated images of African travel — winning Cannes' Creative Data Grand Prix.
Black & Abroad
What it had to solve
Black & Abroad, a company that curates travel for Black travelers, found through social listening that the phrase 'Go back to Africa' was used roughly 4,500 to 5,000 times a month online, almost always as an insult. Instead of ignoring it, the founders decided to strip the phrase of its power by giving it a positive meaning.
How it works
Eric Martin and Kent Johnson, founders of the Black travel company Black & Abroad, found through social listening that the phrase 'Go back to Africa' was used roughly 4,500 to 5,000 times a month online, almost always as an insult. They decided to take the hatred out of it by giving the phrase a job: selling Africa to the people it was meant to exclude.
With FCB/SIX Toronto and Initiative Media, the brand ran paid ads on Twitter, YouTube and digital out-of-home that captured the slur as it happened, redacted the original context, and re-presented it against user-generated images of Black travelers in Africa. The ads drove to GoBackToAfrica.com, a site covering all 54 African countries with real photos of Black travelers, built as a deliberate counterpoint to an industry whose imagery was overwhelmingly white.
The engine behind the campaign was an AI platform using Google Vision that harvested, filtered and licensed aspirational photos from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in real time, then pushed them into campaign materials and the site. The brand also invited travelers to tag vacation pictures #GoBackToAfrica, so the hashtag itself became a growing archive of positive imagery.
At Cannes 2019 the campaign won the Creative Data Grand Prix, the first Canadian Grand Prix of that festival, and the founders framed the goal as stripping the phrase of its power: 'When you say go back to Africa, we say go back to heritage, go back to beauty.'
Why it lands
- It used the attackers' own weapon as the campaign's hook, so every hateful use of the phrase triggered the brand's positive counter-message.
- The AI content engine turned scattered user photos into a licensed, quality-controlled archive, making the response fast, credible and scalable.
- Showing Black travelers in all 54 African countries directly challenged the tourism industry's default white imagery.
- The hashtag invited the audience to co-create the campaign, so Black travelers themselves built the counter-narrative.
What it did
Won the Creative Data Grand Prix at Cannes 2019 — the first Grand Prix of that festival for Canada — and helped build the #GoBackToAfrica hashtag into a stream of Black travelers' vacation photos, positioning a niche travel brand as a cultural voice.
What you can take
A brand can defuse the weapon aimed at its audience: hijacking the slur meant every use of 'Go Back to Africa' became free advertising that redirected hate into beauty.
Since then
The campaign won the Creative Data Grand Prix at Cannes 2019 and drew international coverage as a model of data-driven creative. Black & Abroad went on to extend the idea, including 'The Black Elevation Map,' and the phrase-reclamation approach has been referenced across marketing education as a way to turn hateful language into brand opportunity.
Sources
- African American duo launch 'Go back to Africa' campaign to take hatred out of slur
- This Tourism Campaign Hijacks the Derogatory Phrase 'Go Back to Africa'
- GO BACK TO AFRICA
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card