#WeatherCorrection

Ketchum Publico with go & try

Agency: New German Media Makers (Neue Deutsche Medienmacher*innen)

One-third of all Germans today come from immigrant backgrounds. But you would never know it by looking at German media. New German Media Makers (#Wetterberichtigung, NdM), a nonprofit association representing media professionals with immigrant backgrounds, believes that while Germany has grown more diverse, its media hasn't. We wanted to reveal this imbalance and illustrate how the media was ignoring a growing percentage of German society.

We recognized an unsuspecting place to make news: the weather. Anyone can inexpensively purchase the names of high- and low-pressure weather systems in Germany, so we bought the rights to the first 13 of 2021, giving them immigrant names like Ahmet, Dragica and Dimitrios, instead of traditional German names.

Broadcasters had no choice but to report the change in climate as we hijacked the daily news cycle and put NdM's call for a 30% diversity quota at the epicenter of every news and weather report across the region. We dealt with the intense response on social media -- both positive and negative -- in real time.

#WeatherCorrection reached over 2 billion+ worldwide, earned 600+ international media stories, drew 350,000 website visitors and trended #1 on German Twitter. The results have inspired a new diversity guidebook, a mentorship program and led to meetings with 25+ leading German media and publishing companies that are responding to NdM's call for a diversity quota and hiring more people of immigrant background and colour.

Amazing what a little #WeatherCorrection can do to put media diversity on the map overnight.