In 2022, The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, allowing states to strip the rights of people with uteruses by making access to abortion care nearly inaccessible. Anti-Choice Ads targeted voters who could help sway future decision making around abortion rights, while simultaneously providing actual abortions to those in need.

On June 24th 2022, The Supreme Court overturned Roe V Wade, jeopardizing the right to safe and legal abortion across the US and allowing each state to set its own standard. Following this court decision certain states enacted restrictive abortion policies, making it near impossible for people to have a choice in their family planning and stripping their bodily autonomy.

In a time when the U.S. Supreme Court was removing reproductive healthcare rights from women and people with uteruses across the US, this campaign's ultimate aim was to fight for equitable access to safe and legal abortion to anyone seeking one. Abortion bans disproportionately harm lower income individuals and people of color.

Wisp, along with a coalition of the country's largest reproductive healthcare brands believe in promoting equal rights across everything they do, from every product they release, to the accessibility to them. And after Roe V Wade was overturned, there was increasing pressure from the government to increase regulations on one of Wisp’s products, Abortion Medication. So Wisp, the Abortion Freedom Fund, Plan C, Stix, Mayday Health and August partnered up to create an awareness campaign to show the importance of equal rights and access to abortion care.

America is deeply divided on the issue of abortion care, and social media is a hotbed for these often toxic debates. We see people with different views as dismissable, but progress only happens when we take the time to truly listen and understand one another. So we wanted to find a way to speak outside of our proverbial bubbles and allow people to see a different viewpoint from their own: that abortion care is healthcare, and access to safe and legal abortions is what ultimately saves lives.

Anti-Choice ads force people who don’t believe in a person’s right to choose, to make a life changing choice. We aimed to break through our internet bubbles, and provide a pro-choice message to people who may not often be exposed to one. YouTube targeting tools placed our pre-roll ad ahead of content typically aligned with the anti-abortion demographic. Those ads gave viewers a dilemma –– either watch something that might open their minds to a new, pro-choice way of thinking, or press the skip button — and automatically fund abortion medication to someone in need.

The use of data helped us identify an anti-choice demographic and specifically one that could be swayed from this mindset. From that audience profile we identified YouTube keywords based off of content that they were watching and targeted the pre-roll ads to run in front of similar videos.

This interest based targeting strategy allowed us to create 2 different sets of positive KPIs: Skipped videos adding to the donations, or viewed videos allowing access to people who wouldn't normally see this message. So regardless of the decision of the viewers, we were able to achieve positive results.

Pre-roll ads were placed in front of anti-choice content, that served people a simple message:

“Skip this ad and we’ll provide free family planning medication to someone in need,” at this point the YouTube “Skip ad” button appears. Viewers are then forced to make the choice between skipping the ad and providing free abortion medication, or watching a pro-choice message. The film recontextualizes what it means to be pro-life, showing how access to abortion is what actually saves lives. The film went live on June 24th, 2023, exactly 1 year after Roe V Wade was overturned. Over a million people were served the dilemma, with 27% of them choosing to watch a message that they would normally never see.

Every outcome was a win. If the viewer skipped the ad, an abortion was provided. If they watched until the end, they were exposed to an outside point of view. And, if a mind was changed, that was the ultimate win.

The film and dilemma was served to 1,098,000 anti-abortion believers.

282,000 of them watched the pro-choice film.

816,000 of them pressed the skip button, resulting in 175 abortions being funded.

The project revealed a new use of an everyday YouTube tool, and proved that it’s possible to get messages in front of people outside our echo chambers. Anti-Choice Ads will continue to be used in the build up to the 2024 election season, as we continue to find ways to change minds and ultimately reinstate access to safe and equitable abortion care.