In Brazil, every 90 minutes a woman dies victim of male violence. The best way to change is that is by reporting domestic violence. Disque Denúncia, a state wide anonymous tip line in Rio de Janeiro, receives around 1100 reports/year about this, but the homicide rate is 4 times higher.

They are a civil organization without big budgets for communication efforts, and domestic violence is a sensitive matter. We needed to increase the number of reports, and the best way for that is by generating awareness: people had to start talking about male/female aggression.

For that, we knew PR would be essential, but it had to be about something different to catch people's attention. So in partnership with Shooto, a famous MMA event, we created the world's first mixed-gender MMA fight. It would cause a big debate, and on the day of the event, the fighters would go up the octagon and reveal the campaign: "This fight won't happen here, but it's happening right now in thousands of homes. Report domestic violence."

We found fighters from famous gyms, and announced it on the week of the event. We used a lot of social media and opinion leaders to spread the story. On the big day, it was broadcast live and thousands attended.

After the campaign, domestic violence reports doubled, and on some days even tripled. It made news not only in Brazil, but also on international media outlets like CNN, reaching over 3 times Rio de Janeiro's state population.

To increase awareness about domestic violence, we needed people to think about fights between men and women. With the announcement of the world's first mixed-gender mma fight, an international debate began: was it a fair fight? Because of this originality, even before the campaign was revealed people were already discussing how men should never hit women, and for Disque Denúncia, this is the best way to increase the number of reports. The bigger the awareness about the subject, the more people report about the problem.

As a result of the campaign, reports of domestic violence more than doubled at Disque Denúncia - an increase that overcame all expectations. Not only that, but news outlets from other states and countries that wrote about the campaign encouraged people to look for their local authorities, mentioning the recommended phone line people should use.

Within 1 week, we reached over 40 million people on social media alone, achieving over 3 million dollars in earned media, thanks to stories on CNN, TMZ, Huffington Post and many others. And with that, we helped thousands of women break the silence.