Domestic violence is a sensitive, private topic. Victims are frightened to speak out and act, or they refuse to believe the ‘worst’ of their partners. Encouraging them through communications can be difficult and dangerous. So we reframed the problem:

45% of people in the country know someone who has been the victim of domestic violence.

These people are, in fact, the most important “helpline” for victims. Half of victims would choose to talk about it with friends/family but only in 1 in 4 would talk about it with the police.

The problem, though, is that these witnesses of domestic abuse are passive (only 9% of people have taken action to help victims) and uninformed about the topic (only 14% of the population know how to offer help).

This was the insight – don’t speak to victims – encourage and educate ‘witnesses’ instead by giving them the tools and advice to intervene.

These spots started the debate, but we needed to go further. We wanted to show witnesses exploring the subject and resolving to act.

After extensive negotiation, it was agreed that for the first time ever, a piece of advertising communication would have its own segment on the show Gogglebox (a social experiment about real people reacting to real situations).

This meant we showcased our film again (for free), but more importantly we got to showcase, to an audience of millions, how people reacted to it. And they reacted to it just the way we wanted them to – by discussing the issues involved and how they would intervene.

This finally made the ‘witnesses’ the star of the campaign and the effect was instantaneous. A mass conversation was ignited. The focus was no longer the victims, it was everyone. This was everyone’s problem and everyone should intervene to prevent it.

The campaign had a profound impact. For a small investment of €45,000:

- The activation alone delivered our content to over 3.3 million people & elicited 2 million engagements/reactions (in a country of 4.6 million).

- The campaign website empowering witnesses to come forward experienced a +704% uplift.

- Over 140,000 people were educated to become active witnesses.

- Unexpectedly, media owners began personalising content and even opened up publicly their own experiences with abuse. They utilised their media platforms to mobilise and additional 335,000 people. Effectively, they stopped being media owners and became active witnesses to their own audiences.

- Whilst reports to the police from victims or witnesses cannot be publicly shared, by the end of the campaign:

4 out 5 believe domestic abuse is a serious crime and would encourage victims to contact a helpline.

7 out of 10 people believe they would be willing to intervene.