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Who Was Responsible for the “Look Them in the Eyes” Campaign?

by Dr Gary Sidley
24 April 2024 5:32 PM

We all remember the harrowing “Look them in the eyes” (LTITE) messaging campaign of early 2021, aimed at levering compliance with Covid restrictions. By means of a series of videos and posters, we were confronted with close-up images of acutely unwell patients in intensive care units, ominous music and a voiceover beseeching us to tell them, nose-to-nose, that we never break the rules. Deploying materials that were heavily infused with behavioural science strategies (‘nudges’), frightening and shaming an already overly scared population into obedience, this advertising initiative was widely considered to be the most controversial – and unethical – of all the public health communications during the Covid event. But who were the key actors responsible for inflicting the LTITE campaign on the populace?

My recently published research has revealed the identities of those culpable for arguably the most emotionally disturbing assault by state-funded public health technocrats upon the British people. By scrutinising the documented outputs of potentially key actors (politicians, civil servants, advisory groups, advertising executives and prominent behavioural scientists), together with over 40 original Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to Government departments, four players centrally involved in the production of LTITE have been identified.

MullenLowe advertising agency

On January 21st 2021, the Government announced the introduction of the new LTITE Covid communications campaign, describing how it represented a shift in tone from previous pandemic messaging towards “encouraging people to take personal responsibility and consider the impact of their behaviour on others”. The same YouGov document also identified MullenLowe as the advertising agency commissioned to create the LTITE videos and posters. The contractual arrangement was a lucrative one, MullenLowe receiving £16 million of taxpayers money in 2020 and a further £40 million for the year August 2021 to August 2022. In keeping with these extraordinarily high payments, Tom Knox (executive partner at MullenLowe and longest serving member of their Covid response team) stated that the pandemic constituted the “biggest U.K. advertising campaign since the Second World War”.

The MullenLowe website provides further details of the advertising agency’s prominent role in the genesis of the LTITE project. Based on its own commissioned research that had suggested 20% of the population underestimated the risk of COVID-19, it strove to “make the risk real for those who were unsure or didn’t believe it” by focusing on the people who had “experienced the very worst of the pandemic”. Following the imposition of the second lockdown in January 2021, MullenLowe’s overarching goal was to get people to stay at home.

And it is clear that the creators of these harrowing videos and posters are immensely proud of their work. Citing HM Government’s astrological computer-modelling predictions as the information source, they claim that “‘Look them in the eyes’ was a critical part of the COVID-19 campaign, which is estimated to have prevented between 1.5-1.8 million infections between April-December 2020, saving between 22,629-27,658 lives”. Clearly, MullenLowe – in its self-congratulatory myopia – failed to consider the extensive fear-related collateral death toll in their appraisal (for example, consequent to people being too scared to attend hospital with other illnesses, and elderly people being abandoned to die prematurely of loneliness and neglect). Furthermore, given that their campaign was not launched until January 2021, the time span of the HM Government’s speculative figures renders the LTITE initiative irrelevant.

Conrad Bird – senior civil servant

Conrad Bird is Director of Campaigns and Marketing at the Cabinet Office, and – by his own admission – was centrally involved in the development of nudge-infused messaging during Covid. In November 2020, prior to the LTITE campaign, Bird celebrates his use of “Embedded evaluators, behavioural insight specialists and decision scientists ensuring constant improvement”. Similarly, in the aftermath of LTITE, he says, “We’ve learned how to deploy behavioural insights from scientists to improve our major campaigns”.

When asked in August 2023 (via a personal email) about his role in the development of the videos and posters used in the LTITE project, Bird replied:

Regarding a specific creative brief, this would have been given orally by my team in response to Government and scientific advice concerning the rise of the Covid Delta [Alpha?] variant. As our advertising agency, MullenLowe will have worked on a number of creative routes in response to the challenge, which would then have been researched in focus groups for their potential effectiveness. The most promising route (Look me in the Eyes) would then have been developed further and signed off by colleagues from Health, the Chief Medical Officer and responsible Ministers.

An August 2023 FOI request confirmed that Bird led the commissioning team responsible for the LTITE campaign.

Cabinet Office Behavioural Science Team

Perhaps surprisingly, my research revealed that the direct behavioural science advice to Conrad Bird and his team came neither from SPI-B (the SAGE subgroup dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of the messaging campaign) nor the much-talked-about Behavioural Insight Team (aka the ‘Nudge Unit’). Instead, a less visible group of nudgers secreted in the Cabinet Office are implicated as the proximal source of guidance for the civil servants involved in LTITE.

There are up to five behavioural scientists located in the Cabinet Office. (Based on the FOI Act, the authorities are permitted to withhold the exact number when it is no more than five.) And the Government confirmed that this small in-house team “provided insight and guidance to Conrad Bird”. Therefore one can conclude that, while the outputs of the SPI-B and the Nudge Unit during Covid often endorsed the use of ethically dubious nudges (see here), and could plausibly have indirectly influenced the various actors involved in the LTITE campaign, the sanctioned source of behavioural science input was the Cabinet Office team.

Matt Hancock – Minister for Health and Social Care

The most predictable finding of all. It will surprise no one that the same Minister who warned youngsters, “Don’t kill your gran“, and who wished to “frighten the pants off” people with a new variant, was also ultimately responsible for sanctioning the LTITE campaign. As confirmed by a 2023 FOI response, Matt Hancock (the then-Health Secretary) was the individual who conducted the ‘sign off’ (as referenced in the Conrad Bird statement above).   

While this research initiative has identified four key players involved in the development and dissemination of the harrowing LTITE videos and posters, some questions remain unanswered. For instance, the MullenLowe advertising agency will probably employ its own behavioural scientists and it is unclear how much creative autonomy it was granted – the company did not respond to our requests for information about this issue. However, by identifying the main actors responsible for a contentious campaign that strategically scared and shamed an already frightened population, my research provides pointers as to where we might look to expose those culpable for future nudge-infused state propaganda drives, whether they be under the banner of public health, climate or another purported ‘global crisis’.

Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of the Smile Free campaign opposed to mask mandates.

Tags: COVID-19Fear-mongeringLockdownNHSNudge UnitProject FearPropaganda

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23 Comments
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JohnK
JohnK
1 year ago

Aren’t they just brushing up a typical re-organisation and relocation to save cash, and presenting it as an opportunity to others? “offered the chance to move” often results in resignations, followed by recruiting new workers on lower wages somewhere else.

33
-2
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  JohnK

Not sure about that – lower wages in London? Think you’ll find wages in East Anglia are pretty low. In my admittedly limited experience, these high up corporate people are really keen on destroying our culture and civilisation, goodness knows why as it’s that culture and civilisation that has feathered their very comfortable nests.

85
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

“pandering to political correctness”

Nope, it’s part of the (self) destruction of European (White) civilisation. Just another cockup.

Diversity = more brown people (above all more blacks)

Inclusion = exclude white people

102
-2
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Correct tof. If you read the article I have referenced from Technocracy News you will see how BT is simply playing a small part in the Genocidal plan. All quite deliberate.

51
-2
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

I have always made clear here on DS why I believe we are facing Genocide on a worldwide scale. Well this brilliant article sets it all out and the parallels with the Nazis are undeniable. The starting points: the twin evils of propoganda and censorship.

Everything happening today is designed to wipe at least six billion of us off the planet: starvation, ending fossil fuels, immigration and of course vaccination. And the bloody sheeple are walking straight in to it.

https://www.technocracy.news/technocracy-sustainable-is-the-new-code-word-for-genocide/

54
-2
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

But sustainable genocide, so A-OK…

6
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago

“Martlesham is 95.8% white, according to latest figures – in contrast, Birmingham is 48.7% white.”

racism then?

51
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

Yes and deliberately so.

46
0
allofusarefat
allofusarefat
1 year ago

Nothing to do with steadily doing everything possible (short of rounding us up at gunpoint, and that may well happen in my lifetime) to force rural populations out of the countryside and into their digital gulags, sorry, smart cities? They quite clearly hate (and fear) everything about rural existence – the scary livestock, the regular need to use cars, those open spaces which could be filled with solar panels, the chickens which are just reservoirs of avian flu, all those gas boilers or oil fired heating systems, all that nature stuff just crying out to be rewilded- and most of all, those awkward country dwellers waving their pitchforks, demanding to use cash, refusing to live via their smartphones, and acting as a constant reminder of how people lived for centuries before Year Zero – “real primitives” as Rod ‘Rory’ Stewart thoughtfully referred to his former constituents in Cumbria. Vallance April 2023 is quite clear that greater urbanisation leads to greater institutional trust and compliance with expert opinion/advice. “I thought it would last beyond my time..”

44
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  allofusarefat

Check out the Technocracy News article I have referenced which will explain the emptying of the countryside more fully.

17
0
allofusarefat
allofusarefat
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Very interesting read, thank you. Astonishing that so many policies pass the “does this contribute to depopulation?” litmus test.

14
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  allofusarefat

“Astonishing that so many policies pass the “does this contribute to depopulation?” litmus test.”

Indeed.

Once you accept that the ultimate goal of all that is happening today is depopulation then all of a sudden the blinkers come off.

13
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

Don’t talk to me about the abysmal company that is BT. I won’t bore yous with my horrendous experiences but what I will say is that whenever I rang to speak with somebody there was always maximum diversity on the end of the line because I felt like I was ringing India. Actually I think I was.
Speaking of the dreaded ”D” word, is the NHS deliberately going out of its way to be more diverse or is it just that they can’t get enough home-grown front line staff so they’re having to recruit from abroad? They have always had an issue with this in nursing, to be fair, they just didn’t have any of these made up, daft ‘Diversity officer’ positions when I worked for them. Anyway, this latest news doesn’t surprise me;

”Hundreds of Nigerian midwives working for Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) have been suspected of gaining their medical qualifications by fraudulently having others take their exams for them in their home country, and dozens remain under investigation.
In a press release published on Wednesday, the U.K.’s Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) explained it had received reports back in May this year of “unusual data” relating to computer-based tests at the Yunnik Technologies Test Centre in Ibadan, Nigeria.
It added that, following an investigation, it now believes “there is evidence of widespread fraud at the Yunnik site.”

Foreign nurses who wish to join the NMC register and work in healthcare in Britain are required to undergo several assessments to prove their competency, one of which includes a computer-based test (CBT).
The healthcare regulator initially raised doubts over the legitimacy of test results pertaining to 515 Nigerian nurses and midwives currently practicing in the U.K. and deemed their results invalid.”

https://rmx.news/uk/hundreds-of-nigerian-nurses-and-midwives-investigated-by-uk-regulator-on-suspicion-of-fraudulently-passing-medical-exams/

25
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

No, not the Nigerians. Fiddling? Whatever next?

29
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
1 year ago

What is it with female CEOs and diversity.

29
0
DomH75
DomH75
1 year ago

Isn’t part of Agenda 21/30 about forcing people out of rural areas into smart cities where they can be bagged, tagged, sheep dip vaccinated and easily spied on? They claim these things are ‘conspiracy theories’ and do them anyway!

32
0
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago

Woke HATES the countryside

Why? Simple – because we are resolutely monocultural. And anyone with a brain knows that culture is my definition “mono” as it pertains to a specific group of people. Multi-culti on the other hand, no fact means NO common culture. Ergo, no culture.

I abandoned BT way back when they screwed me; our landline (yup that long ago) crapped out, the same day as my Mum had a severe stroke up in Cheshire, 150 miles away. It wouldn’t work. BT said it was the phone, even when I told them when plugged in in a neighbour’s home. 6 weeks later, they admitted it was caused by a flooded junction box. In the meantime, deep winter, I had to go to a local telephone box to call the hospital.

They offered me FIVE pounds comp. I told them where they could stuff it, and as soon as we could, went elsewhere. I’d rather go with out any comms that use that shower of useless shysters.

10
0

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