The Privilege of Choice

A data-based campaign to explain the inequality report of Oxfam Intermón

One could say that inequality is a matter of effort, of “trying harder”, however, inequality is actually a problem linked to luck, a matter of immovable circumstances out of control (like, for example, gender) that tie people to very unfair environments and allows no social mobility whatsoever.

NGO Oxfam Intermón released the first inequality report with a multidimensional perspective, with a new framework of analysis created with the London School of Economics, that helped detecting all the different aspects of someone lifes that affect their inequality. 

We worked with them to craft an online and offline experience to make this data relatable and understandable; our aim was to establish a conversation with the audience that could turn cold facts into feelings that would allow the users to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. A path that would be much more disadvantaged than their own luck.

The privilege calculator

At www.elprivilegiodedecidir.com (currently unavailable), users could calculate in a percentage, that we called “the privilege index”, their level of privilege in society, and they could understand why many different factors can alter how fortunate they might be in life through data. The action asked questions related to the kind of house the users were living at, their hopes for the future or even if they had attended any demonstration in the past year. It was an interactive experience that reached a very high engagement ratio, making the signing in number improve up to 400% compared to other engagement actions.

Translation of the report into an emotional live experience

Moreover, we also hacked a real-life experience to make a lucky group of (privileged) people live the fate of the most disadvantaged in an emotional way. We created a life data visualization in a cinema room to explain the report results using sound, image and light; the room represented the 20% of the poorest people in society. The participants involved were presented with the data in a way that they would feel inequality in their own life, in their own skin, understanding the big component of fate in it.

Privilage of Choice

Have you ever wondered about your own privilege?

Number of answers:

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