We created a fake escort website, girlsofparadise.sex, on which the girls are already dead, but the clients don't know it yet. Each story is a reconstruction of a real case. When the potential client called or started to chat with one of them he thought was a real prostitute, he was tricked into hearing her real, tragic story.

We designed girlsofparadise.sex to appeal to our core target: men under 35 living in cities. We advertised the site with flyers and set up a call center to respond to potential clients. The site launched March 18, 2016, and received more than 600 calls in its first week. We recorded the calls and then used the audio recordings in radio ads, which amplified the conversation. These ads, which were broadcast in the days leading up to the vote in the French Assembly, provoked national debate about the importance of penalizing clients of sex workers. And then, after the vote in April 2016, we launched a case study film about the campaign, to expand the conversation about the violence of prostitution beyond the borders of France. This approach, in which we initiated a conversation with the clients themselves, and then broadened the discussion, resulted in societal change and international conversation.

Tier 1:

Despite a very small media spend (only radio ads), Girls of Paradise sparked an enormous conversation, thanks to earned media. The campaign received 57.8 million organic impressions, with coverage in 31 countries. More than 200 journalists wrote about the campaign, in prominent publications such as Le Figaro, The New York Times, El Mundo, Corriere Della Sera, the Economic Times of India, and the Huffington Post. Girls of Paradise was also discussed on public radio, by NPR in the United States and by France Inter.

Tier 2

The campaign changed perceptions of prostitution. In just one week of the campaign, girlsofparadise.sex received more than 600 phone calls and 8000 texts and live chat messages. Those conversations demonstrated an obvious change of attitude, as the men heard the tragic stories about the girls they were trying to reach.

And the campaign contributed to a change in public sentiment about the culpability of people who pay for sex. In April 2016, the French Assembly voted, for the first time, to penalize clients of prostitution. With this landmark law, France became a pioneer.

We didn’t just generate conversation and debate in France. Girls of Paradise was used as an example in two international summits about prostitution, organized by CAP International, the international Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution, in New Delhi (January 2017) and by the United Nations in New York (March 2017).

The campaign also raised awareness for Mouvement du Nid, which has since seen a 77% increase in donations.