Social media campaign: Fake news awareness

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Project Summary

The aim of this project focuses on the creation of a digital campaign targeting the spread of fake news, or a specific sub-facet thereof, that circulates on social and digital platforms. The campaign branding is tailored to be consistent and engaging across all formats of deliverables, namely a digital poster, an email invitation and a WeTransfer background. The sub-facet chosen for this specific campaign is the spread of fake news regarding global warming and climate change denial.

Technical specifications & deliverables

- Digital poster at 72 DPI, 1414px by 2000px, sRGB in JPEG format

- Animated WeTransfer Background, 1040px wide with 10px padding, in GIF format

- Digital emailer invite at 72 DPI, 600px wide, sRGB in PNG format, not exceeding 5MB

- Vertical narrative presenting deliverables in context

Design Strategy

The campaign focuses on the spread of fake news regarding global warming and climate change denial. False science and information are consistently spread at an alarming rate on platforms such as Facebook and twitter, with research showing that the guilty parties are generally aged 45+ and identify as conservative in their ideologies. Initial research revealed that more often than not, the source of these ill-informed or downright fictitious articles and news sources stem from agents of major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil, who as a company have a long and complicated history with climate change cover-ups.

With this research in mind, the #FossilFueledAgendas campaign was created, bringing attention to the less-than-savoury character of the fossil fuel giants that fake news endorses. The design strategy therefore focused on getting the spreaders themselves to think twice about what they were sharing, and thus the campaign cheekily emulates popular conservative news outlet Bratebart.

The visual language makes use of a strategic hierarchy, specifically an eye-catching heading that would draw conservative sharers in, a source line stating who wrote/conceived this ‘article’, followed by a further explanation sarcastically tailored to paint the source in an honest light and bring attention to their false credibility.

The striking colour palette of orange, black and white was chosen to match the Bratebart brand colours, and the typefaces similarly chosen to emulate a news article typically found on these conservative sites guilty of spreading fake news.

The overall effect presents a digital campaign that avoids preaching to the choir, but rather targets the groups that are either on the fence or in complete denial regarding climate change. An added benefit of this strategy is that if the campaign collateral is shared without further investigation, the sharing party will unknowingly be spreading rhetoric opposing their fake news views.