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.

Our goals:

- Getting people to talk about men and women fighting: is it fair? should this happen?

- Draw attention to the event so people could see the campaign's revelation.

- Have state and perhaps national press write about it, raising awareness about the issue.

- And with all that, the most important goal: increase the number of domestic violence reports.

We had to reach general society, so we would use Shooto's press reach and their connections with world champions to spread the story. Our success would also be measured by earned media and social media interactions.

First, the most important result: domestic violence reports doubled, and on some days even tripled.

But we did much more than that.

- Over 40 million people reached on social media alone (more than 3 times Rio de Janeiro's state population)

- Over 3 million dollars in earned media

- International press covered the fight and the campaign, overcoming our expectations: CNN, UsaToday, TMZ, Euro Sport, Vice and dozens more

- Thousands in attendance on the day of the event, which was broadcasted live

- A debate meant to be local became a global one, getting the whole world involved

- Increased awareness for the matter in other states and even other countries: sites and news portals that wrote about the campaign published the local phone number for people to report domestic violence

- Thousands of positive social media reactions and interactions

The event was scheduled for friday, December 20.

On tuesday, December 17, the fight was announced on Shooto's social media accounts. Opinion leaders like MMA world champions and fighters from the athletes' gyms helped spread the story, and within minutes, the debate began. The press started trying to reach the fighters, the organizers, and basically anyone else involved. We confirmed everything was real, and that more would come.

On the next day, keeping the debate alive, we published a video on youtube showing the athletes' preparation, spreading it through social media and opinion leaders.

We coached everyone for the weigh-in on Thursday, maintaining the suspense.

After the revelation on the big day, we sent out press releases to the overwhelming media channels, and made more posts on social media explaining the whole stunt, with pictures and a video for everyone to understand the violent reality we wanted to change.

Disque Denúncia is a state wide anonymous tip line in Rio de Janeiro. They forward complaints, tips and reports for the police to investigate, receiving all kinds of reports, including for domestic violence. However, the numbers for that issue aren’t good at all: an average of 1100 reports per year for over 4000 murders related to violence against women. The best way to change that is by drawing attention to the matter, showing people the power of reporting domestic violence. So we needed to use PR not only to get people's attention, but also to get everyone talking about it.

Our strategy was simple: announce a highly controversial fight to make all eyes turn to the event when the campaign would finally be revealed.

We would start off reaching niche press, because of course it would sound very strange to hardcore MMA fans, specially coming from one of the world's most famous MMA events. But with the help of world champions like José Aldo and Rodrigo Minotauro, we could make the story reach people that don't follow the sport that close, and increase the chances of getting the story published in traditional media.

We would do all this on the week of the event to decrease the chances of the fight's true motive leak to the public. On the big day, the fighters would go up the octagon like a regular fight and reveal everything. After that, press releases and social media would help spread the revelation.