Insight
Dominican Republic is ranked number six in countries with the highest cases of domestic violence. In the last 10 years, 2,506 women have lost their lives due to it. Tiendas La Sirena, the largest retailer in the country, preferred daily by Dominican women, wanted to raise awareness for this issue by promoting a message on November 25th, the international day of non violence against women.
Only 10% of abused women report their offender due to fear or shame. 90% of them remain silent. The brand knew it had to provoke a nation and make them talk about this deadly issue.
Strategy
Prime-time television in the Dominican Republic, is mostly led by female communicators. Pages BBDO negotiated with the most influential women in the highest rated TV shows among women to perform a live action on their shows. The action was linked to the audience's reaction on social media.
Execution
On November 25th 2015, Pages BBDO created a live action on TV's highest rated programmes. At the beginning of each show, the host appeared physically abused but acting normal. A Twitter feed was placed on screen to see people's reaction. The more people talked about it on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook, the less bruised she would appear. During commercial breaks the make-up team would diminish the bruises triggered by the public’s reaction.
In real time, every host posted her bruised picture on her social media profile, no message explaining what had happened. As the TV show ended, without any bruises every host addressed the reason she looked battered during the programme and profiles, questioning why so many people spoke out for them, but go silent with abused victims. It also provided the telephone number for Línea Vida, the free of charge hotline to report cases of violence against women.
Results
The action generated a firestorm of reactions, people demanding to know what happened to these women. Within minutes, thousands of posts flooded social networks.
The most prominent personalities in TV, entertainment, journalism, media and sports talked about the action online and live TV. More than $200,000 was generated in free press.
Thousands of voices joined in on the brand's conversation about the importance of a nation that will no longer tolerate violence against women generating awareness for La Sirena. In 2015, the National Statistics Organisation of Dominican Republic reported a 4% decrease in femicides compared to 2014.