Sex trafficking is the world’s 3rd largest criminal industry. But in Canada, teenage girls barely know the problem exists, let alone that they’re vulnerable. As a leader in the area of servicing at-risk trafficked youth, Covenant House – an established Canadian not-for-profit – wanted to change that. The goal was simple: raise awareness and understanding BEFORE girls were lured into a life of sex work. Education has always been the best weapon. But traditional attempts to educate our target had failed. This time, we knew we had to find a unique way to educate them that they’d recognize, relate to, and – most importantly – remember through a powerful creative idea called Shoppable Girls.

Shoppable Girls was an anti-sex trafficking campaign by Covenant House Toronto targeting female teens aged 13-15 as well as their parents. The campaign centred around a fictional online fashion brand that didn’t sell the clothing it advertised, but rather the models wearing them. By emulating the style of a real fashion campaign, we created geo-targeting shoppable media units to areas frequented by both teens and sex traffickers (schools, community centres, and malls) which directed our audience to an education platform to get them to understand the signs and get help.

Shoppable Girls targeted females aged 13-15, the group most at risk of being targeted by traffickers and difficult to educate. Social commerce is one of the fastest growing online retail categories, with 1 in 3 teenage girls using social to shop or discover brands. We leveraged that behaviour to drive awareness but also directly targeted parents to initiate a conversation with their children. After the online launch, we unveiled a storefront activation in downtown Toronto with girls posing in the windows on Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Each touch point – social/experiential - directed teens/parents to a site for support, and survivor stories.

We also needed to make sure this idea would be received properly. We conducted research to use throughout the campaign as proof points and news drivers and did stakeholder mapping and risk identification across key parenting, teens, survivors, and sex trade workers to mitigate risk and arm advocates.

The campaign launched February 2020 in three tiers: social commerce, out-of-home and experiential – the driving force for PR. The storefront activation was kept confidential to mitigate risk. We welcomed opposition, but did not want to be blocked by protestors. Dignitaries who endorsed the campaign included: John Tory, Toronto Mayor; The Hon. Jill Dunlop, Associate Minister of Children and Women’s Issues, Government of Ontario; The Hon. Sylvia Jones, Solicitor General, Government of Ontario; and Detective Sergeant David Correa, Sex Crimes and Human Trafficking Enforcement Team, Toronto Police Services.

These leaders, alongside Covenant House spokespeople, were onsite at the activation. They spoke to media – fashion, news, lifestyle, parenting – using the campaign to highlight work they were doing in the sex trafficking space. Media and influencers were told about the campaign in advance so they could prepare features with survivors and watch the storefront activation unfold with the general public.

The campaign generated a conversation about sex trafficking sharing valuable information to help parents and teens identify signs and get help. Results:

· Exceeded yearly targets by 139%; including earned media (+245%) and social media (+539%)

· 109 earned stories and 117M impressions with 100% key message penetration

· Storefront activation covered by every news-focused broadcast media in Toronto

· The Toronto Star (Canada’s largest outlet) published an open debate asking if readers felt Covenant House “missed the mark”. Sixty-one per cent voted in favour of the campaign agreeing it was based on extensive research and teens responded strongly to it

· 40.1M social impressions with Snapchat accounting for 89.35% of traffic where swipe-ups to ShoppableGirls.ca increased following storefront activation

· Earned influencers (parenting, fashion, government and law enforcement) shared support

· But most importantly, the Ontario government pledged $307M to combat human trafficking weeks later with campaign spokespeople and survivors quoted.