In Italy, 3 women are murdered every week and domestic femicide leaves thousands of children orphans. This dramatic problem is frighteningly growing and largely ignored, both by the public and the Institutions who promised 12 million euros to support their growth and education: an investment that, unfortunately, was never really made. So, we needed to find a way to raise awareness on the problem and push the Government to finally unlock the funds. And we did, by showing something kids who witnessed domestic violence use instead of words to convey their traumas: drawings.

Crayon-colored pictures that adults usually ignore, exactly like they do with this national issue.

We shone a light on this national problem by making people notice they ignored it through the only way children are able to convey their traumas according to research: drawings, something adults don’t usually pay attention to as well. The idea? Proving to people -in an effective and practical way- that they ignore this issue by putting it, in the form of a drawing, right before their eyes,

until they can’t shut them to it anymore.

From the Institutions to the citizens, in Italy, everybody neglected this femicide orphans’ issue. So, in partnership with Save The Children, we decided to act in order to make their lives visible to all. And we did it where we knew we could surprise people with something unexpected that could make them think and consider: the IKEA stores, where shoppers can move around realistic, wonderful home-y replicas of living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms. The perfect settings to place our drawings (that have scientifically proven to be the only way kids have to process trauma) and demonstrate to the many people that these kids’ traumas are neglected, even if they’re in front of everybody’s eyes, and therefore ask them to sign a petition to protect them and their future.

On International Children’s Day, we placed 2,000 copies of the same drawing by a real femicide orphan in the rooms of every IKEA Italian store. Shoppers flooded stores across the nation, as they always do. But as it happens in the homes and daily lives of these children, nobody noticed it. Until we made them, disclosing the dramatic story behind the drawing at the end of the in-store customer journey through an immersive, touching experience that ended with a special call to action: an invite to sign a petition we launched to urge the Government to unlock the €12M fund established to support these orphans. To boost the campaign and get as many signatures as possible, we turned the in-store experience into a social video that soon went viral on several social networks, even ending up on the TV news.

The impact achieved was on a national scale. We brought our campaign in all 23 IKEA Italian stores and we spread it online, using all the official channels of the brand. It triggered an impressive conversation, both on newspapers and TV, and the topic quickly gained national relevance, collecting over 50 million earned media impressions. The petition linked to the campaign exceeded all expectations: the public finally stopped ignoring the problem and started to act by signing and sharing our petition. In the end, we were able to gather 8 times the number of signatures needed to arrive on the desks of the Government. And we did, with a wonderful result: after many years, the Italian Ministry of Economy unlocked the €12M fund: a crucial investment to brighten up the future of thousands of femicide orphans.