As England go in to the knockout stages of Russia 2018, the National Centre for Domestic Violence has rolled out a poster-led campaign carrying the copy line: ‘If England Get Beaten, So Will She’.
Working with creative agency J Walter Thompson London, this multi-market cause campaign aims to highlight the tragedy of football fueled domestic violence in three nations.
The creative set of posters feature images of the national flag imprinted on a women’s face in blood.
For example, the England poster sees blood running from a woman’s nose so that it forms the St George’s flag across her face.
Other posters in the campaign include reworked versions of the same idea featuring the flags of Japan and Switzerland.
The Out-of-Home phase is running in harness with Ocean Outdoor and, as well as posters, the execution imagery spans digital and print too.
The campaign runs in the UK, Switzerland and Japan on relevant national team match days until the end of the World Cup.
“As fans across the world watch each game with trepidation so too do the partners of some of those fans,” explains JWT creative director Jo Wallace.
“The lesser known aspect of football is clearly communicated with this impactful campaign, ‘The Not-So-Beautiful Game’.
“The team saw these stats and immediately created this excellent work to help reach and support victims of Domestic Violence during the World Cup when they are in particular danger.”
Comment:
Powerful and direct, this reactive campaign highlights the link between football matches and incidences of domestic violence and emerges from research showing that reports of domestic violence rise 26% when England play (and 38% when England lose).
This continues the growing awareness raising response of this tragic link between sports and domestic violence and abuse.
One particularly notable campaign in this space was 2014’s ‘Gender Cage Fight’ stunt (see case study)
These visceral images portraying national flags as the wounds of domestic abuse were, according to the agency, shared far beyond their media plan.
Designed to shock and educate the public
The agency says that the campaign emerged from a slice of proactive, reactionary work.
It came about after JWT creative Maya Halilovic was looking through tweets tagged with the World Cup hashtag early on in the tournament and found some research showing that reports of domestic violence increase 26% when England play and 38% when England lose.
She discussed this with her creative colleague Jo Taylor and together they sketched out the image of blood forming in the shape of England’s St George’s Cross.
The visual power was all too obvious and a team was put on the project and the campaign concept was signed off by the executive creative director midway through Cannes and the idea was further developed.
JWT had to overcome the challenge that long-standing client the National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV) was actually away on vacation and unreachable and so the team moved on until the client returned and quickly green lit the project.
In total the campaign took 10 days from start to finish.
The campaign led to a serious spike in website traffic for the NCDV.
The power of a good idea eh!
Links:
National Centre for Domestic Violence
http://www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/nationalcentrefordomesticviolence/
J Walter Thompson London
