Brief: Create an illustrated campaign that reverses the gaze, placing men in the uncomfortable spaces women navigate daily. Utilise unconventional advertising tactics to create an immersive experience and aim to ‘take up space’.

Problem: Women of colour in South Africa are forced into limiting racial and gender stereotypes that dictate how they move through the world. Space itself, whether physical, social, or digital reinforces these stereotypes, turning environments into silent enforcers of oppression. As a result, women of colour are restricted in the spaces they occupy, their movement shaped by societal expectations imposed because of both their race and gender.

Insight: One cannot understand the lived experiences of women of colour simply by observing them. An immersive video game allows players to step into their world, explore identities, and experience consequences they would never encounter in everyday life, encouraging a shift in perspective.

Solution: Koda is an immersive illustrated campaign aimed at young South African men. The campaign turns stereotypes into a literal game world, a fragile, paper-crafted space where each archetype is forced to navigate the consequences of how society defines them. By letting players embody these women and experience how space contains, controls, or erases them, the campaign exposes invisible oppressions and challenges audiences to question the structures they accept as normal.