86,400 seconds for sale

Buy a pixel meets Facebook connect. That’s the technique used in this fundraising campaign for the Interval House, Canada’s first centre for abused women and children.
It’s based on the data that every second in Canada an act of violence against women occurs.

86,400 seconds is the number of seconds in a day.

The Facebook connect driven website puts familiar faces on victims of domestic violence, and prompts visitors to take a stand by buying a second of the day.

Buy the seconds here.

Amazing animated typographic helpline conversation

Amazing animated typographic conversation shows what it’s like to speak to a helpline counsellor.

The animation is made for ChildLine. It is a UK-based, confidential, free, 24-hour counseling service for children and young people under the age of 19. ChildLine deals with any issue that causes distress or concern, one of which is unfortunately sexual abuse.
The video is also one of the eye catchers at the ChildLine website. Good work from the helpline to prepare and convince. To take the first step.

Related ChildLine posts:
- ChildLine: ‘how u feelin’ remixer
- Don’t hide it anymore

Yellow umbrellas to shelter from the storm

Every three hours in Wisconsin, a child enters into the foster system because of domestic abuse, neglect or alcohol and drugs in the home.
That’s what this new campaign from Serve Marketing is about. They has partnered with the Coalition for Children, Youth and Families to bring attention to the need of foster care families in Wisconsin.

They worked with foster parents, foster children, college students and the surrounding communities to create the “Shelter From the Storm” campaign.
A follow-up to last year’s Silver Anvil nominated “Turn A Life Around” handstand campaign, umbrella flashmobs across the state will occur throughout the month of May (Foster Care Awareness month). These bright yellow umbrellas symbolize the safe haven that a foster family can provide to a child in need.

Gary Mueller from Serve Marketing: “These kids’ lives are like being caught in a virtual storm every day. That’s why we chose to use iconic yellow umbrellas as the metaphor for foster parenting and what it means to these children. That when you become a foster parent, you’re literally giving kids shelter from the storm.”

Billboards and a televised PSA direct viewers to FosterParentsRock.org, where information about becoming a foster parent is available.

Where do you draw the line on rape culture?

I was recently introduced to this campaign by its project manager, Julie Lalonde. According to the campaign site, its purpose is to challenge “common myths about sexual violence” and to equip bystanders with “information on how to intervene safely and effectively.”

The campaign, run by Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres and Action ontarienne contre la violence faite aux femmes engages people by asking a series of questions about what they consider acceptable. The questions, in French and English, touch on various timely aspects of what has become known as rape culture, including references to Chris Brown’s treatment of Rihanna, well-known cases of peers sexually shaming young women on social media, and the ability of a drunk person to consent to sex, as well as sexual harassment in the workplace, abuse by sports coaches, and rape within marriage.

When answering each question, the user becomes part of the statistics. And these statistics can be troubling, even if completely unscientific. For example, to the question shown in the poster below, 31% of people answered that it is “not a big deal” to share a nude picture of a classmate shared without their consent. Although, considering how easily pictures of Amanda Todd, Rehtaeh Parsons, and the unidentified Steubenville victim were spread, the stat should not be that surprising.

See the rest of the campaign print creative below. There’s some nice art direction in there. Then visit the site at draw-the-line.ca to try the interactive quiz, share stories, and view the campaign infographics.

A billboard providing information “Only for children”

In advertising, the notion of “targeting” is essential to reach the right person with the right message. Ok, nothing new. So how about delivering two messages on one single billboard to optimize a campaign? The Fundación ANAR (Spain) developed this crazy idea with a mechanism providing a unique message for children victim of abuse (and warning adults at the same time). Depending on the angle, the message differs with an area only visible for under 10.

An infographic about online sexual abuse and harassment

[see full infographic below]

According to the campaign page, “Digitizing Abuse is an Urban Institute project studying the role of technology in teen dating abuse and harassment.”

They share these worrying statistics:

- 25 percent of dating teens report they’ve been digitally victimized by their partners.
    (Only 9 percent seek help, and rarely from parents or teachers.)
- 84 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also psychologically abused.
- 52 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also physically abused.
33 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also sexually coerced.

Although a fairly standard infographic in terms of design, it does the job.

Although I’m not sure making a Seinfeld reference, in this context, was entirely appropriate:

See the full infographic below, or go direct to the source.

A Saudi ad uncovers domestic violence

The King Khalid Foundation hired Ogilvy to create this ad to raise awareness and action against “the phenomenon of battered women in Saudi Arabia”. The campaign page encourages citizen reporting.

Supporting vulnerable kids with the Vine mantra

The new popular app Vine can work like a mantra. It is the power of repetition with the six-second video loop.
The attempts from the British Kids Company demonstrate it.

It’s perfect for low budget campaigns thus for small charities.

Kids Company has launched this new campaign to raise awareness of maltreatment, neglect and abuse experienced by the thousands of children they support.
The scenes they show in these short clips represent three important facets of their work; supporting children in poverty, preventing neglect and providing hot nutritious meals for hungry children. And the call to action is clear in the final frame: “Text KIDS HELP to 70700”.

Vines are easy to share with Twitter. And therefore it has the viral opportunity.
And what the Kids Company really understands is that Vine and Twitter has it’s limitations. The share the background information together with all the Vine files on their homepage. That seems obvious but many charities forget that part of the campaign.
Great work Kids Company!

Every day, too many children are suffering from neglect. Text KIDS HELP to 70700 vine.co/v/btIUJZzZvJK #makeitstop

— Kids Company (@KidsCo_Tweets) April 15, 2013

Do creepy anti-child-abuse ads like this work?

Child sexual abuse is a horrible and disturbing thing. But that awfulness is just compounded by ad campaigns that sexualize the very children they are supposed to be protecting.

These ones are from Herezie, Paris, for Innocence In Danger. They may have the intended effect of shocking the viewer, but they do so with a little too much Art Director ambition. Do you think this is an effective strategy, making the viewer empathize with the victim? Or is it just an excuse to exploit them?

Other creepy child abuse campaigns:

Some people see children as grown up
What kind of man preys on underage girls?
Ads against child abuse are all show, no go
Creepy Cannes winner is a touch too much

To this day: Impressive storytelling about the trauma of bullying

This perfect combination of storytelling, poetry and animation is online since Feb 19 and got over 7,6 million viewers on YouTube.
It is a project from Canadian Poet, Author and Performer Shane Koyczan.

“To This Day is a project to further explore the profound and lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual.”

Shane Koyczan: “My experiences with violence in schools still echo throughout my life but standing to face the problem has helped me in immeasurable ways.”

I can tell you how impressed I am. But I think it is better to give some quotes:

“Everyday before I sleep I watch this”
“The first bullying video that actually said something to me…thanks. I needed it”
“still amazing. they showed this at my school and usually everyone talks through the news but not a soul dared move when this was playing.”
“i’ve watched this at least 100 times since the day it was released. it is the only thing keeping me going at this point. thank you shane.”
“I think the last line “our lives will only be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty.” I think it means that although we’ve been through horrible painful things, we have to find beauty and balance out the good and bad. Thats how you make it, you find beauty even when you think it’s over.”

See all 41,000 comments at YouTube here.