Ask A Mate

The client

Beyond DV is a not-for-profit working across domestic and family violence prevention, recovery and education.

Their work supports women and children rebuilding their lives after violence, while also investing in programs designed to stop violence before it starts.

Ask A Mate sits within that prevention work. It’s a national movement helping communities give young men healthier examples of masculinity, respect and relationships, with Ask A Mate Day creating a moment to make those conversations much more visible.

The brief

For Ask A Mate Day 2026, Beyond DV wanted to take the movement national and get more people actively involved.

The campaign needed to build awareness of Ask A Mate and Ask A Mate Day, drive Great Mate Award nominations and encourage people to pledge their participation.

But this wasn’t a campaign about telling men everything they’re doing wrong. We wanted to make the conversation around masculinity and violence prevention feel more useful, approachable and actionable, speaking to the adults already influencing young men every day.

The brief was to create a campaign platform that could stretch across advertising, social, content, PR, ambassadors, sport, schools and community activity, while still giving people one clear idea to grab onto.

Because changing culture is a big job. The campaign needed to make the first step feel doable.

The approach

We built the campaign around a simple behaviour: showing up for young men.

Instead of asking people to become experts on masculinity or violence prevention overnight, the campaign focused on the influence they already have — as parents, coaches, teachers, mates, colleagues and community leaders.

From there, we developed the campaign strategy, creative platform, messaging and content, then rolled it out across paid media, social, email, PR, ambassadors, partnerships and community activation.

Ask A Mate Day became the big campaign moment, supported by the Great Mate Awards, practical resources and stories from people already modelling healthier ways to show up.

The campaign also moved well beyond the feed, with billboards, radio, television, school talks, sporting partnerships and live events helping the idea travel into the places people already spend their time.

The impact

The campaign travelled. A long way.

Ask A Mate Day 2026 delivered 3.6 million reach and impressions, 136 activations across print, digital, radio and experiential channels, and 5,725 campaign engagements. It also helped raise $42,736 for Ask A Mate and domestic violence prevention.

Website traffic jumped 4,767%, 126 people joined the email list, Instagram grew 29%, Facebook grew 15%, and 80% of people reached on social were new audiences.

The campaign also secured $197,000 in pro bono media coverage, national billboard placements across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, a Brisbane Lions game-day activation and support from 14 high-profile ambassadors.

Not bad for asking one pretty simple question: how are you showing up?