BACKGROUND
Skin colour should never affect salary. However, research shows that working professionals in the UK from black, asian, mixed race and minority ethnic backgrounds are paid on average 16% less. We needed to persuade the UK government to introduce legislation to make ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory, just like we do for gender. So how do you create awareness about the devaluation of diverse working professionals?

IDEA
To highlight this hidden issue and make it relatable to everyone, we used a familiar technology with a built-in bias. Autocorrect. A tool that helps some users communicate seamlessly, but comes at the expense of others, devaluing those with diverse names. The ‘Autocorrected Pay Gap’ campaign uses real autocorrect examples to demonstrate how built-in bias in favour of English-heritage names can affect everything from autocorrect to your monthly pay packet. Because if your name gets autocorrected, your pay might too.

RESULTS
These impactful billboards across the UK ignited awareness about the ethnicity pay gap and urged Brits to demand immediate government action. With JC Decaux's pro bono support, our message reached over 11 million people in 10 cities for £0 media spend.

● Hundreds of ethnically diverse working professionals changed to their ‘Autocorrect’ names on LinkedIn as a protest, sharing stories of how their names have impacted their careers
● The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, tweeted the campaign to his 3.2m followers
● 11,201,804 total impressions via billboards in the UK with a media value of £342,236, provided pro bono
● The campaign was endorsed on LinkedIn by the inventor of autocorrect, Dean Hachamovitch, who praised it as a use of ”Autocorrect for good”.
● The campaign featured on LinkedIn’s global ‘news of the day’ feature, available to view by all on the platform
● Landed in over 20 outlets including The Independent, The Metro and The Guardian

But most crucially, shortly after the campaign’s release, the secretary of state for business and trade, Kemi Badenoch, released the first ever guidelines on how businesses could report their ethnicity pay gaps.

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