Joyful Heart's ground-breaking, celebrity-driven NO MORE PSA campaign calls on society to end the silence and inaction around sexual assault and domestic violence.
In 2016, we built on its success to address the myths and excuses surrounding male sexual abuse.
Male survivors are met with persistent and harmful responses. The campaign addresses these myths head-on. With stark simplicity and directness, it features 27 celebrities and athletes looking straight into the camera and declaring NO MORE to each of them:
NO MORE "why didn't he tell anyone?"
NO MORE "why didn't he fight back?"
NO MORE " he seems fine to me."
NO MORE "what kind of guy would let that happen to him?"
NO MORE "that doesn't happen to guys."
It points viewers to 1in6.org, a campaign partner and leading organization providing services and information for male survivors of sexual abuse and assault and those who care about them. The name 1in6 comes from the jarring statistic of men affected: 1 in 6 men before the age of 18. 21 million men.
In doing so, the campaign achieves two objectives:
1. To call on bystanders and those who are not survivors themselves to reconsider their thinking around who can be a victim, and understand the blame, isolation, and misconceptions about abuse that are placed on male survivors.
2. To let men who have experienced abuse and those who care about them know that they are not alone, and that help is available.
The PSAs made their debut on Viacom's channels—including Spike, BET, MTV, TV Land, VH1, and more— starting March 2, 2016. Shortly after, they began a wider release across other local and national media markets. They were also featured during a full-day marathon of Law & Order: SVU on USA Network, which was dedicated to NO MORE Week 2016—an annual week of action on the issues of domestic violence and sexual assault. The following day, the print campaign began a six-day run on Viacom's larger-than-life billboards in Times Square, where thousands of passers-by looked up to see this messages.
To coincide with the launch week, we distributed a press release to announce this new phase of the NO MORE campaign. We specifically focused on reporters who have covered sexual violence in the past, as well as the stories of survivors of male sexual assault. In addition, we conducted outreach to celebrity-focused writers, leveraging the talent featured in the campaign in our content. Following the launch, we published an op-end by Maile Zambuto, CEO of Joyful Heart, and Steve LePore, Executive Director of 1in6, in the Huffington Post.
On social media, we produced a suite of sharable, customized-for-social infographics and campaign print ads, hosted on thesocialpresskit.com for turnkey sharing by the public. We worked closely with our celebrity cast members and media partner, Viacom, to amplify our message, producing customized content for networks and cast members. An entire day of the NO MORE Week of Action was dedicated to engaging men as survivors, and 1in6 hosted a #MenToo Twitter chat answering questions about childhood sexual abuse and how we can support male survivors' healing.
With this multi-channel effort—and unique collaboration amongst media powerhouses that made the broad reach of this campaign possible—the results were incredible. In terms of metrics:
An audience of 80,756,129 to date for the video campaign thanks to 8,471 airings across 62 stations—in addition to 65,000 views on YouTube;
A media reach of 85,570,092, with stories in outlets from TODAY to Refinery29;
A two-fold increase in the number of visits to 1in6.org in the days following the launch of the campaign, and to 1in6's online SupportLine its first month;
A social media audience reach of nearly 4.1 million, generating more than 4.9 million impressions in the first week.
Even more powerful are the stories of individuals who reached out for support, shared their stories, who, for perhaps the first time, learned they are not alone.
As Steve LePore of 1in6 reflects:
"Having received numerous emails about the campaign from people all over the world, one in particular stood out for me. The man (a visitor to New York) wrote that he had decided to take a walk in Times Square, where he saw the 1in6 billboard. He described pausing, astonished, to watch it, and then waiting to see if it would run again. Eight minutes later, it did… He told us he continued to just stand there in Times Square, watching it over and over again, every eight minutes. He had 'never told anyone' (his words) about having experienced abuse, and maybe for the first time ever, he didn't feel so alone."
