The brief was to raise awareness to the fact that 1 in 130 women live in modern slavery and to get this harrowing fact in the public eye in order to bolster Walk Free’s position in lobbying governments and industry bodies to take action toward eliminating modern slavery.

To get a big issue in front of people without it feeling like just another thing going wrong in 2020, we knew we needed to surprise people by being there in the moments they’ve tuned out the tragedy and settled in for a steady stream of joyful video content.

By infiltrating these moments of digital downtime, we were able to reach a mass, but highly engaged set of audiences and take them by surprise during their digital downtime, creating maximum impact and getting an audience of millions aware of and outraged by our ‘1 in 130’ stat.

The execution was 3 videos each focussing on one form of modern slavery- child labour, forced marriage and domestic servitude. Each video was designed to look like a popular YouTube format--from Toy Reviews to Get Ready With Me makeup tutorials to high-end Open Home tours--so it would infiltrate people’s social feeds and video suggestions seamlessly before subverting the theme completely to reveal our shocking message.

In designing our videos this way, we were able to target people with a message about modern slavery when they were least expecting it.

Utilising a small paid media budget, bolstered by the reach of influencers, celebrities and politicians, the Slavery Unseen films reached 5.5 million total video views, 20 million impressions and a 81% video completion rate for viewers (YouTube’s average is 45%). The videos resulted in a 374% increase in followers across Walk Free’s social platforms, ensuring a larger audience will be regularly exposed to their data and stories.

The videos debuted globally at the UN Secretary General’s daily press briefing, further amplifying the message out of its primary digital sphere and into spaces where key decision-makers will see them.