Sydney, Australia – The Australian Department of Social Services has launched a national campaign, ‘Consent Can’t Wait’, encouraging young people to take the first step in educating young Australians on sexual consent, by checking their understanding and speaking to their peers about it.
Created by BMF, the campaign highlights the importance of updating our understanding of sexual consent by showing how the questions we have need to be talked about, and answered, before moments of intimacy.
The national behaviour change campaign aims to remove the fear and judgement surrounding conversations about sexual consent, and bring Australians into the conversation by turning the perceived complexity and inexperience surrounding the topic into an opportunity to learn about consent.
‘Consent Can’t Wait’ features a diverse range of real Australian couples, as they highlight the various internal thoughts and questions many Australians silently hold about consent – questions the next generation need to know the answers to.
Talking about the campaign, Christina Aventi, chief strategy officer at BMF, said, “We know consent is hard to define, but kids are learning more than we think, and we can’t leave it to chance and hope for the best. So, the first step is to educate ourselves and get to a shared understanding. Because before we can teach young people what’s right and wrong about consent, we need to get clearer ourselves.”
Meanwhile, Kiah Nicholas, associate creative director at BMF, commented, “From casting real couples to an intimacy coordinator on set, to wardrobe autonomy, to consent over how the scenes were set; consent was integrated into every facet of the campaign process. It was critical to us that our campaign didn’t just talk the consensual talk but walked the consensual walk. After all, if we can’t act with consent, how can we expect the Australian public to?”
The campaign is rolled out on May 26 across the country and includes TV, cinema, online video, social, and OOH. Additionally, the Department of Social Services and BMF have launched a website where Australians can check their understanding of sexual consent and challenge what they think they know about the topic.
