Watch the Replay
Join us to develop a new perspective on driving change from the inside out:
The politics and impact of advertising
Your role and purpose as a marketer
Best practices and challenges of creating a movement
How to be successful driving change
In 2016, troubled by the public rise of racism and sexism in the media, longtime advertising creative director Matt Rivitz took action. Using nothing more than a Twitter account, he started Sleeping Giants, a crowdsourced campaign dedicated to advertiser safety and responsibility in the digital age. This decentralized, grassroots effort quickly expanded to 11 different countries, created a community of over 1 million followers and touched off a reckoning for digital advertising, social media and irresponsible technology, helping over 4,000 advertisers avoid funding hate and bigotry.
Similarly concerned about the integrity of content developed by AI, and need for humans in the loop, Matt founded a writing-only resource for companies of all sizes called The Quills using a similar decentralized model as Sleeping Giants. Launched in the same week that AI chatbot ChatGPT launched a subscription service, Matt hopes that The Quills will provide not only work, but a community for real, human writers and a significant counterbalance to the not-yet proven AI technology.
Matt will share his story of leading from the heart to ensure that advertising and media remains in service to humanity and provide a behind the scenes look at what it really takes to take a stand and create a movement.
Key Webinar Takeaways
Matt walked us through the steps he took to make radical changes to hold advertisers accountable towards hate.
Establishing a set of principles and morals is essential for any individual or organization looking to create change.
Companies should prioritize human creativity and purpose when creating products or services.
Marketers need to be proactive in their understanding of AI and its implications on mass communication to uphold their companies values and principles to presume integrity
About Matt
Matt Rivitz is the founder of Sleeping Giants, a crowdsourced anti-bigotry and corporate responsibility campaign, and The Quills, a writing resource for businesses of all sizes.
After founding Sleeping Giants in 2016, the campaign spread to 11 countries, grew to over a million participants and led to countless advertisers cutting ties with websites, TV networks and social networks espousing or allowing hate, bigotry and harassment. Its work led to real and significant change in areas like advertising technology and social media, touched off an industry-wide conversation about the idea of brand safety and even created legislation in France around advertising transparency called The Sleeping Giants Amendment.
Departing the campaign in 2022, Matt has recently founded The Quills, a writing resource for companies of all sizes, supporting the idea of human writers in an era of unproven, potentially irresponsible Artificial Intelligence.
Matt has appeared on CNN, has been interviewed by Katie Couric for Yahoo! News and featured on Pod Save America, Kara Swisher’s Recode podcast and Daily Beast’s The New Abnormal. Matt’s work with Sleeping Giants has appeared on the front page of The New York Times’ Business Section, The Washington Post, GQ, and Rolling Stone among others. He has spoken at Cannes Lions, SXSW, Advertising Week, Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.