How Lux Used a Live Volleyball Tournament to Challenge the Male Gaze
Lux's "Change The Angle" is a 2023 live-event intervention developed with Wunderman Thompson Singapore, in which the brand placed scannable QR codes on the bodies of women beach volleyball athletes during the Durban Open in South Africa, directing broadcast viewers toward a film demanding that sports media redirect its cameras from female anatomy to female athleticism.
The campaign launched in South Africa across April 15 and 16, 2023, during the Durban Open Women's Beach Volleyball tournament organised by the South African Volleyball Association. Eight teams of South Africa's top women beach volleyball athletes competed in Durban while the event was broadcast live by SABC, reaching an estimated audience of 19.7 million people. That broadcast reach transformed what might have been a niche sporting event into the stage for a national and international conversation about how female athletes are framed by sports media.
Lux, owned by Unilever, positions itself as a beauty brand committed to supporting women against everyday sexism. The "Change The Angle" initiative extended that platform into sports media, targeting a specific, documented behaviour: the tendency of broadcast cameras to linger on female athletes' bodies rather than their competitive performance. The QR codes were placed deliberately on the areas of the body most commonly targeted by those invasive angles. When scanned, each code launched a film featuring leading sportswomen, sports commentators, and officials calling on broadcasters to change their framing and focus instead on strength, skill, and sporting achievement.
Wunderman Thompson Singapore led the creative development, working closely with Volleyball SA and SABC to execute what amounted to a live hack of an ongoing tournament broadcast. The result was a campaign that used the infrastructure of sports broadcasting itself as both the subject of its critique and the mechanism of its message.
Lux identified a structural problem in sports broadcasting that extends well beyond South Africa. As reported by afaqs! on April 21, 2023, Hinoti Joshi, Global Business Lead at Wunderman Thompson Singapore, cited data indicating that women in sports are ten times more likely to be objectified by camera angles focusing on specific body parts compared to their male counterparts. That figure provided the strategic foundation for a campaign built not around advertising but around intervention in a live media event.
The choice of beach volleyball as the vehicle was deliberate. The sport has a documented history of broadcast coverage that prioritises physical appearance over athletic performance, making it a category where the problem is both visible and demonstrable to general audiences. By partnering with Volleyball SA and state broadcaster SABC in South Africa, Lux secured access to a live, credentialled sporting event with a substantial broadcast audience, lending the intervention institutional legitimacy that a purely commercial production could not have achieved.
In South Africa, women's sport faces compounding challenges around both media representation and commercial investment. The campaign's creative rationale connected directly to that local context while simultaneously addressing a pattern observed across international sports broadcasting. Competitors in the broader personal care and beauty space — including Dove, also owned by Unilever, and Nivea — have pursued cause-led brand positioning in markets across sub-Saharan Africa, making purposeful storytelling an increasingly competitive requirement rather than a differentiator in isolation. Lux's approach distinguished itself by targeting media behaviour directly, naming broadcasters as agents of change rather than simply celebrating female empowerment in abstract terms.
Joshi stated, as reported by Campaign Brief Asia, that broadcasters have the power to change the sexist portrayal of women, and that the campaign was an active call for them to recognise flaws in an antiquated practice and become change agents to end everyday sexism.
Wunderman Thompson Singapore built the campaign's creative mechanism around a single, elegant provocation. Rather than producing a conventional advertisement about objectification in sports media, the team embedded the message inside the broadcast event itself, using the body of the female athlete as the site of critique.
The QR codes placed on athletes during the Durban Open were positioned on the precise areas of the body that sports broadcast directors have historically framed in close-up. That placement transformed each invasive camera angle into an accidental advertisement for the campaign's own argument. Any viewer — or broadcaster — whose attention was drawn to those areas of the frame would encounter a code redirecting them to a film in which prominent sportswomen, commentators, and officials delivered a direct address to the industry. The campaign effectively used the male gaze as a distribution mechanism for its own refutation.
The supporting film gave voice to leading female athletes and sports officials across South Africa, grounding an abstract critique of media behaviour in the lived experience of the women most affected by it. The decision to include sports commentators and officials alongside athletes broadened the coalition of authority behind the message, signalling that the demand for change came from within the sports establishment and not only from an external brand or advocacy organisation.
Marco Versolato served as Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman Thompson Singapore during the campaign's development, with the broader creative partnership encompassing Volleyball SA and SABC as institutional collaborators. As reported by MARKETECH APAC on April 18, 2023, the campaign was framed explicitly as an encouragement to sports media to do better in covering female athletes, a formulation that positioned Lux as a facilitator of industry accountability rather than a unilateral brand statement.
The "Change The Angle" campaign produced a substantial and independently verified awards record. At the MAD Stars festival in 2023, the campaign won the Grand Prix in both the Livestream and Sponsorship categories, as well as eight Gold awards and one Bronze award, as reported by MAD Stars. At the One Asia Creative Awards in 2023, the campaign received Gold in Events, Stunts and Competitions and Bronze in Brand Partnerships, as reported by The One Club. A Silver Award with fourteen total points was also recorded at One Asia Creative Awards, with the specific category not disclosed. The London International Awards recognised the campaign with a Bronze in its relevant category, as reported by oneclub.org.
The campaign's broadcast reach in South Africa was substantial. The live SABC transmission of the Durban Open reached an estimated audience of 19.7 million people, giving the QR code mechanism and its associated film a scale of exposure that amplified the intervention far beyond the tournament venue in Durban. Campaign Brief Asia reported on April 18, 2023 that the live tournament hack, combining QR codes with the SABC broadcast, was the structural engine driving that reach.
No additional verified performance metrics — including digital engagement rates, QR code scan volumes, or earned media valuations — are publicly available for independent citation. The campaign's structural effectiveness, however, is evident in its ability to convert a live sporting event into a self-distributing media intervention, with the broadcast infrastructure of SABC functioning as an involuntary amplifier of the brand's message.
Clapboard Score: 77/100.
"Change The Angle" is a 2023 Lux campaign created with Wunderman Thompson Singapore. It placed QR codes on women beach volleyball athletes during South Africa's Durban Open, redirecting broadcast viewers to a film calling on sports media to focus on athletic performance rather than female anatomy. The event was broadcast live on SABC.
The campaign launched in South Africa on April 15 and 16, 2023. It was activated during the Durban Open Women's Beach Volleyball tournament in Durban, organised by the South African Volleyball Association. The tournament was broadcast live by SABC, reaching an estimated audience of 19.7 million people across South Africa, according to campaign documentation.
The campaign won the MAD Stars Grand Prix in both Livestream and Sponsorship categories in 2023, as well as eight Gold and one Bronze at the same festival, per MAD Stars. It also received Gold and Bronze at the One Asia Creative Awards, as reported by oneclub.org, and a Bronze at the London International Awards.
Wunderman Thompson Singapore led the creative development for Lux, a Unilever brand. Key figures included Hinoti Joshi, Global Business Lead, and Marco Versolato, Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman Thompson Singapore. Institutional partners included Volleyball SA and South African state broadcaster SABC, whose live transmission of the Durban Open provided the campaign's primary distribution platform.
Female athletes wore QR codes on body areas most commonly targeted by invasive broadcast camera angles during the Durban Open in South Africa. When scanned, the codes directed viewers to a Lux film featuring sportswomen and officials demanding that broadcasters redirect their cameras toward athletic performance, effectively turning the male gaze into a delivery mechanism for the campaign's own message.
Lux chose South African volleyball because the sport has a documented history of broadcast coverage that prioritises physical appearance over athletic achievement. Partnering with Volleyball SA and SABC provided institutional credibility and access to a live, nationally broadcast event. As reported by afaqs!, women athletes are cited as ten times more likely to be objectified by camera angles than male counterparts.
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