Cannes Lions

The Not So Beautiful Game

WUNDERMAN THOMPSON, London / NATIONAL CENTRE FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE / 2019

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Overview

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Credits

Overview

Background

Domestic violence spikes during the World Cup: reported incidents in the UK increase 26% when England play, 38% when they lose. Similar statistics play out across the world.

The beautiful game has an ugly side. Domestic violence spikes during the World Cup. The National Centre for Domestic Violence provide emergency legal injunctions for victims. With incidents set to surge during the World Cup we must raise awareness and connect people with life-saving help. Currently there’s no awareness of the issue, let alone the NCDV and the help they offer but we can’t compete in budget terms with other brands trying to leverage the World Cup.

Create awareness and breed a culture of disgust, not acceptance, when it comes to domestic violence. Let’s interrupt football chatter and provoke much-needed conversations around domestic violence, whilst positioning NCDV as a key source of support where victims can access immediate help.

Idea

Every 4 years the World Cup ignites football fever. But there’s an ugly side to the beautiful game: domestic violence spikes during the tournament. In the UK alone, reported incidents increase 26% when England play, 38% when England lose. Similar statistics play out across the world.

The National Centre for Domestic Violence save lives by providing free legal help such as emergency injunctions. It was vital we communicated this service at a time when victims were proven to be in most danger.

So, we hijacked football culture: subverting the behaviour of fans adorning their bodies with their teams’ national flag by reimagining these flags in the form of realistic wounds and bruises across victims’ flesh. In doing so we purposefully increased the visceral reaction to an already-emotive symbol, interrupting football chatter and provoking much-needed conversations around domestic violence and how to seek life-saving help.

Strategy

Domestic violence spikes during the World Cup. In the UK alone, reported incidents increase 26% when England play, 38% when England lose. Similar statistics play out across the world.

We hijacked the fiercely patriotic language of fan-culture to create a provocative campaign, forcing the world to rethink what the World Cup means for domestic abuse victims - exactly when they’re most vulnerable.

To meet our awareness objective, we also targeted mass reach and shares on social to spread the message far and wide. Influencers and individuals with large followings and connection to the topic shared the posts, reaching more and more people organically.

We tracked match results and worked fast to release new, topical flags across social media just before matches to ensure the campaign remained relevant.

This reactive, genuinely share-able and news-worthy campaign made headlines across 100+ news platforms, in over 13 countries.

Execution

We meticulously reimagined iconic flags in the form of realistic wounds and bruises across victims’ flesh. The imagery was designed to capture attention, enticing viewers to look closer and absorb the chilling facts, purposefully delivered with clean, concise typography.

The campaign ran for the duration of the World Cup. We were reactive to match results and worked fast to launch new flags to coincide with specific ‘knock out’ matches, when emotions were running high and victims are proven to be most vulnerable.

The powerful images spread across digital, OOH and print. Relevant flag executions were released on social channels moments before kick-off for specific ‘knock out’ matches.

We reimagined 5 flags: England, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan across OOH, print and digital executions, for the duration of the World Cup.

Outcome

Our hero post alone reached 4.7m+ organically (on Facebook). The campaign created organic news headlines in more than 13 countries across the world, across more than 100 news platforms including: BBC, ABC, Huffington Post, and The New York Post.

Our hero post alone was organically shared 40,000 times and generated over 30K comments. That organically shared post went on to be shared tens of thousands of times itself (organically).

Social awareness for NCDV increased by 1250%. Over the campaign period, calls for help to NCDV increased by 19.6%. The campaign created organic news headlines in more than 13 countries across the world, across more than 100 news platforms including: BBC, ABC, Huffington Post, The New York Post and Fox News – reaching millions of people worldwide, increasing awareness and opening up much-needed conversations around domestic violence and where to seek help. Even the NHS and police adopted the campaign

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