The Woman in This PSA Is Free but Still Trapped in a Prison and Can't Just Leave

Lori, an abused wife and mom in Michigan, spent two years squirreling away money—hiding bills in a tampon box—until she had the means to escape her violent partner. 

Her story is the basis of a new campaign, #FreeToWalk, from the Allstate Foundation and ad agency Leo Burnett, with a stark and chilling video as its centerpiece. 

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Cold Drinks Turn These Thermal-Ink Coasters Into Pictures of Battered Women

A new Japanese campaign aims to combat domestic violence in the country with inventive coasters that hope to tame excessive drinking, which can contribute to the problem.

Yaocho, a bar chain, and agency Ogilvy & Mather Tokyo created the coasters, each of which features a portrait of a woman’s face printed in thermal ink. When a cold drink rests on the coaster, the portrait changes to include cuts and bruises.

The visuals are—no pun intended—chilling, and it’s a clever use of media, though perhaps a touch too much so for its own good, with mechanics that may undermine the spirit and gravity of the message.

“This drink will turn the woman on this coaster into a beat-up woman—just like you might do to a real woman, if you drink too much,” is essentially the subtext of the ads. “Can you have another round without wanting to hit your significant other?”

But as Lucia Peters points out over at Bustle, while alcohol can be a factor in domestic violence, “placing the blame for domestic violence on alcohol excuses the people who commit the crimes in the first place—which is classic abuser behavior.”

Yaocho deserves credit for openly addressing domestic violence, and trying to raise awareness, theoretically at the expense of its own business. But while a drinking establishment is, on its face, the right place to reach viewers with a message about alcohol and domestic abuse, there’s also a bit of cognitive dissonance in an anti-drinking ad that requires the viewer to be drinking to deliver its full effect.

The tagline, at least in its translated version, isn’t even “Don’t drink too much.” Rather, it is “Don’t let excessive drinking end in domestic violence.” In other words, “It’s OK to spend your money on a bender, so long as you don’t beat your wife or girlfriend afterward.”

And if you are the type of person who gets violent when you drink, you probably shouldn’t be drinking at all. 

More info below. Via Design Taxi.



Nice Guys on Tinder Turn Nasty in This PSA Campaign About Domestic Violence

We’ve seen a few different Tinder hacks from marketers, but here’s an interesting one that gets at the heart of the dark side of relationships.

An organization called Women in Distress created fake profiles on the popular dating app for three different “abusers.” As users swiped through their photo albums, the guys went from nice to nasty, eventually going to far as to throw a punch.

The point, says ad agency Bravo/Y&R, is that even nice guys can become violent fast, and that women need to “look for help at the first sign of things turning ugly.”

There are certainly a few problems with the execution. The guys look a little cartoonish in the images. Plus, the whole thing is a bit spammy—and the lack of a trigger warning might be problematic. Still, it’s well intentioned and might get Tinder users thinking about what they really want out of a relationship.

CREDITS
Client: Women In Distress
Project: Tinder Beater
Agency: Bravo/Y&R, Miami
Chief Creative Officer: Claudio Lima
Art Director: Gabriel Jardim
Photographer: Mauricio Candela
Motion: Fernando Lancas



NFL Players Say 'No More' to Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in Powerful PSAs

Nearly two dozen current and former National Football League stars appear in powerful new PSAs condemning domestic violence and sexual abuse.

They look straight into the camera as they say “No more” to excuses and rationalizations that perpetuate the problem. These include “Boys will be boys,” “He just has a temper,” “Why doesn’t she just leave?” and “She was asking for it.”

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning bookends a 60-second clip, which also features league exec Troy Vincent and Pittsburgh Steelers star William Gay, both of whom have suffered abuse tragedies in their lives. The work was developed by Y&R and produced by Viacom and the Joyful Heart Foundation. The latter’s founder and president, actress Mariska Hargitay, was among the spots’ directors.

“This is a monumental step toward change,” Hargitay tells USA Today. “If badass NFL heroes are coming forward to talk about these issues, I guarantee you it is going to give inspiration and permission to young boys to step up in a new way. Love in a new way, protect in a new way, and to be a man in a new way.”

The NFL, plagued by scandals involving Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and others, is donating $3 million a week in air time for the PSAs. The player spots broke during last week’s Thursday Night Football telecast on CBS. “No More” spots featuring celebrities like Courteney Cox, Amy Poehler and Ice-T last broke a month ago.

The campaign’s plain talk is compelling, and so is its stark visual style. Against a plain white background, the players establish an instant connection with viewers. That makes it hard to look away when the subjects challenge us to face tough issues and do the right thing.



No More Mr. Nice Guy: PSA Campaign Reveals the Brutal Duplicity of Abusers

You’ll want to wipe that smile off his face.

Lowe Campbell Ewald’s chilling new public-service campaign for Haven, a Michigan nonprofit that assists victims of rape and domestic violence, strips away the “Mr. Nice Guy” veneer to reveal the threat lurking behind the disarming grins and sweet talk that abusers use to confuse and control their victims.

“I’ll be really nice,” begins a happy-faced dude in the spot, below directed by Oscar winner Angus Wall. But he turns out to be anything but. His mood swing is understated and utterly convincing, especially in the Ray Rice era, when heroes can be revealed as villains in the few seconds it takes for a surveillance camera to capture their shameful acts.

“This highly emotional approach will resonate with our audience,” says agency creative chief Mark Simon. “Our hope is that it reaches those who are suffering and provides them with the knowledge that help is out there.”

The tagline is “Live without fear,” yet for a campaign all about escaping terror, there’s plenty of it here. Still, the message—across all media—is powerful. One print ad entwines the phrase “I’m crazy about you” with “You crazy bitch,” while a bus-shelter poster (perhaps the campaign’s best execution) features the headline “I Love You”—which, upon closer inspection, is actually composed of hundreds of tiny threats like “You’re gonna pay for this” and “If I can’t have you, nobody can.”

By focusing on the mind-set of perps, Haven puts the blame in the only place it belongs. “It is the choice and actions of the abuser that causes abuse,” says Beth Morrison, the organization’s CEO. “The victim is never at fault.”

CREDITS
Client: Haven
Agency: Lowe Campbell Ewald
Chief Creative Officer: Mark Simon
Group Creative Director: David Bierman
Art Director: Kelly Warkentien
Copywriter: Nancy Wellinger
Producers: Mary Ellen Krawczyk
Account Executives: Joe Gaulzetti, Nicole Reincke, Alyssa DeYonker
Production Company: Elastic
Director: Angus Wall
Director of Photography: Eric Treml
Executive Producer: Jennifer Sofio Hall
Line Producer: Shanah Blevins
Editing House: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: David Brodie
Audio Mix: Lime



DiGiorno Is Really, Really Sorry About Its Tweet Accidentally Making Light of Domestic Violence

DiGiorno Pizza has become one of the top brands on Twitter thanks to its quick wit and good ear for real-time conversations, but one careless tweet last night put that reputation at risk.

After a video of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancee Janay Palmer led to his termination from the Baltimore Ravens on Monday, thousands of women took to Twitter to discuss their physically and emotionally tortuous experiences in abusive relationships. They used the #WhyIStayed hashtag to fight the victim-blaming attitude of Palmer’s critics, who had questioned why she would marry a man who knocked her unconscious.

Jumping onto the popular hashtag, DiGiorno clearly didn’t look into its context before tweeting, “#whyistayed You had pizza.”

The backlash was swift, and within minutes the tweet had been deleted. The brand then posted the apology above, noting: “A million apologies. Did not read what the hashtag was about before posting.”

It was a boneheaded mistake, to be sure, similar to snack brand Entenmann’s famously regrettable decision to tweet on the hashtag #notguilty, failing to realize it was trending because Casey Anthony had been aquitted of murdering her daughter.

But in Entenmann’s case, the brand responded by simply abandoning Twitter for years, leaving their account as a scorched-earth monument to poor decisions.

DiGiorno has, so far, taken the more mature and difficult approach. Since last night’s #whyistayed tweet, the brand has been responding to dozens of Twitter users offended by the post. Each response has been personalized and is clearly sincere, which is a nice reprieve from the usual copy-and-paste approach to dealing with bad PR in social.

So while DiGiorno is sure to take more heat today for a truly dumb tweet, it’s good to see the brand’s social team didn’t just close down the account, smash their phones on the ground and hop the first plane to the tropics.

Via Mic.



2014's Bleakest World Cup Ad Is Full of Cheering but Will Leave You Devastated

We’ve talked a lot about the connection people feel for their respective teams during the World Cup, and the advertising that celebrates it. But this haunting PSA reminds us that it isn’t always positive. Check out the spot below, part of Tender Education and Arts’ #StandUpWorldCup campaign. Via Jezebel.



Shocking PSA Might Make You Think Differently About Domestic Violence

Hidden cameras have been used in various PSA campaigns lately to shed light on how people react in public to distressing situations. Notably, there was the Norwegian stunt where a boy sat freezing without a coat at a bus stop in winter.

Now, from Dare London, we get an interesting look at two scenarios of domestic violence—with hidden cameras recording the stark differences in how people nearby respond to the physical violence happening right in front of them.

The spot, directed by Dark Energy director David Stoddart for domestic violence charity ManKind, is meant to provoke—and have the viewer question his or her assumptions about violence in relationships. So, does it do a good job of that?

Warning: The video contains simulated violence and may be upsetting.




It’s all about imitation / Un parfait mimétisme?

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

THE ORIGINAL? 
Against Domestic Violence – 2011
Source : Silver at Caracol de Plata contest
Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (Colombia)
LESS ORIGINAL
Against Domestic Violence / Frauenzentrale – 2014
Source : YouTube, Coloribus
Agency : Publicis Zürich (Switzerland)

Speaking of the same idea / Ma parole, c’est la même idée!

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

THE ORIGINAL? 
ATFD against Domestic Violence – 2011
« Don’t let anyone speak for you »
Source : AdForum, EPICA Awards BRONZE
Agency : Memac Ogilvy Tunis (Tunisia)
THE ORIGINAL?
CFCV against Domestic Violence – 2011
« Don’t let your man speak for you »
Source : AdForum, TOPCOM GOLD
Agency : New BBDO (France)

After Viral Success of Inequality Ads, Creators Say They Will Expand Campaign

Late last week, a creative twist on print advertising became a global phenomenon, as the "Auto-Complete Truth" campaign for UN Women exploded across social media and generated worldwide discussion.

AdFreak's writeup of the campaign by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai has been shared more than 116,000 times on Facebook alone, making it the most-shared item of the year on Adweek.com. The campaign has since been featured by hundreds of blogs, news sites and social media feeds around the world. 

"We have been overwhelmed by the instant enthusiasm and support that our campaign has received," says Ronald Howes, managing director of Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai. "This has encouraged us to develop it even further, after the global acclaim that is has received.” 

The client, of course, was ecstatic to see a relatively modest ad campaign spark the exact kind of international debate it was intended for. "UN Women is very heartened by the discussion the campaign has sparked," says Nanette Braun, communications and advocacy chief for UN Women. "Very obviously there is a demand for a global conversation on women’s rights, empowerment and gender equality, which is exactly what the ads were intended to generate.”

To learn more about the campaign and the vocal response it has received, check out our Q&A with the team that created the ads, after the jump:

AdFreak: How did this project come about? Was it intended to be a print campaign from the start, and will these ads actually be running in print?

Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai: This creative idea for UN Women began, as many searches naturally do, on a Google search bar. What we came across was simply shocking. The appalling global results to an auto-correct search of terms such as "women should" was something we felt needed to be shared.

The campaign was published earlier in 2013 in the UAE and became a viral success this week. UN Women plans to publish internationally in the future.

Many of the commenters and people sharing the campaign have been posting screenshots of their own autocompleted searches, with different results around the world. Was this something you hoped the campaign would spark people to try?

We have been pleasantly surprised by the viral success of this campaign. We wanted to start a conversation on the major barriers which are in place of women's economic, political and social empowerment across the globe—issues that UN Women is working to address. We hope that our work will go some way to help raise awareness of the sexist global attitudes toward women and will enable a dialogue to begin on the topic. We encourage people to join in the debate on Twitter with #womenshould, or on the UN Women website.

We are so pleased to see others are inspired by our work and witness the creation of their own versions of our campaign, which tackle other social issues.

Did you selectively edit the results of the Google searches you did for this campaign? Were some irrelevant suggestions tossed out to focus on the most egregious examples of sexism?

What makes our campaign so powerful is its truth and simplicity. None of the searches were engineered to produce these results; that's why we were so shocked to discover them. In order to raise awareness of the inequality women face, we did choose to highlight the most compelling answers, to deliver the most impact, however the search results from Google autocorrect were not falsified in any way.

Some have criticized the campaign by saying that Google autocomplete suggestions have been used in several marketing campaigns in recent years. Were you concerned about this approach seeming derivative or over-used?

Our campaign is not focused on Google autocomplete suggestions. The medium of Google search was merely a base upon which we were able to successfully illustrate our point. Google search is an iconic symbol in our digital world and therefore recognizable for millions of people, so we used this as a vehicle to express our ideas. The truth behind the search about people’s global perceptions is what our campaign focused on, not the technology of Google autocomplete.

Lots of people are debating whether you can actually change these kinds of search results. Do you think it's possible, or is it something that will have to change slowly over time as a barometer of equality?

We are aware that change of this magnitude will not happen overnight! However we hope that our work will go some way to alter perceptions by raising awareness of the issues which women face. 


    

Powerful Ads Use Real Google Searches to Show the Scope of Sexism Worldwide

Here's a simple and powerful campaign idea from UN Women using real suggested search terms from Google's autocomplete feature. Campaign creator Christopher Hunt, head of art for Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, offers this summary: “This campaign uses the world's most popular search engine (Google) to show how gender inequality is a worldwide problem. The adverts show the results of genuine searches, highlighting popular opinions across the world wide web.” Each ad's fine print says "actual Google search on 09/03/13." While Google users in different countries are likely to get different results, a quick test shows that several of these suggested terms definitely come up in U.S. searches. Since its creation, autocomplete has become a popular device for social debate and even inspired a recent epic visual from xkcd, but these ads do a stellar job driving home the daunting fact that enough people around the world share these vile opinions that Google has come to expect them. Check out all the design versions after the jump. Via Design Taxi.

 

 

 


    

Austin Bar Makes Amends After Putting Out the Year’s Worst Sidewalk Sign

There are awesome chalkboard sidewalk signs, and there are less awesome chalkboard sidewalk signs. Minibar, a bar in Austin, Texas, recently put out a less awesome chalkboard sidewalk sign—and then scrambled to contain the damage.

The sign above would be bad enough at any time of year, but particularly so in October, which is domestic violence awareness month. (Also, sorry, but Heineken is an import.) An Austin resident who works at a women's shelter in town posted a photo of the sign on Instagram and Facebook, and it was soon picked up nationally.

The bar moved quickly to atone for the offense, firing the person responsible and pledging to donate $1 of every domestic beer sold this month to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. (Check out the Facebook comments for proof of how welcome this kind of swift, decisive action can be among consumers.) Might be time for copywriting lessons, too.


    

Ogilvy Creates Saudi Arabia’s First Major Ad Campaign Condemning Violence Against Women

Saudi Arabia, which ranked 131st out of 134 countries for gender parity in a recent report from the World Economic Forum, has unveiled what is believed to be its first major ad campaign condemning violence against women. The first ad, created by Memac Ogilvy in Riyadh for the King Khalid Foundation, shows a woman in a niqab with a black eye. The English version of the copy reads: "Some things can't be covered: Fighting women's abuse together." "The veil does not only hide women's abuse, but it's also a representation of the social veil behind which a lot of societal deficiencies hide," says Fadi Saad, managing director of Memac Ogilvy in Riyadh. "It is one bold first step toward legislation to fight women's abuse in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We believe that the authorities are ready to support such a drive today given the evolution that is taking place in the country." It's another sign that views toward women may be slowly changing in Saudi Arabia. Last summer, Saudi women competed in the Olympics for the first time. And this January, King Abdullah appointed 30 women to the consultative Shura Council—also a first.

    

Knocked out by the similarity / Une ressemblance assez frappante!

sportsbra2007 sportsbra2013
THE ORIGINAL?
Running Free (running stores) – 2007
« Support bras, now available »
Source : Coloribus
Agency : DDB Toronto (Canada)
LESS ORIGINAL
Nod & Wink  – 2013
« Need a sports bra? »
Source : LaReclame
Agency : Cogent Elliott, Birmingham (UK)

Stop the abuse! / Maquillée comme une idée volée?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

THE ORIGINAL?
Against Domestic Violence – 2011
Source : Violenceagainstwomen.eu
Agency : ProximityBBDO Brussels (Belgium)
LESS ORIGINAL
Against domestic violence – 2012
Source : TheReel
Agency : BBH London (United Kingdom)

Domestic Violence

Une campagne pertinente destinée à la lutte contre les violences conjugales à la maison : un élégant travail autour de la typographie, avec l’évolution des mots de haut en bas, “Date” devenant “Slap”. Des déclinaisons réalisées par l’agence Hoopernagel.

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