This 2016–2017 domestic violence awareness campaign was created for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in conjunction with the Los Angeles Mayor's Office.
The campaign's objective was to drive greater public awareness in Los Angeles about domestic violence (DV).
With domestic abuse on the rise in 2016, the City of Los Angeles doubled the number of Domestic Abuse Response Teams within LAPD divisions. To further bring about meaningful change, the city wanted a campaign that directed domestic violence victims and the general public to tools and resources to help break the cycle of violence.
The campaign was supported by a new website, www.nodvla.org, which united domestic violence resources and support groups in one online hub.
Strategy
We started with the insight that ads about domestic violence too often depict victims and bruises. So we asked ourselves: "What else does domestic violence look like?" Our answer was that it doesn't look anything like love.
We illustrated that disconnect by juxtaposing romantic conventions with the demeaning language of abuse. The contrast between romantic imagery and abusive words underscores the insidious nature of domestic violence and makes clear that it has no place in a relationship, or in the City of Los Angeles.
In October, for National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the campaign appeared throughout Los Angeles and was united by the tagline, "Domestic violence has no place here."
Executions depicted candy hearts, flowers, teddy bears, jewelry, poems, text messages and dating profiles—all juxtaposed with language that turns such images on their heads.
Since domestic violence affects every Los Angeles community—straight, gay, rich, poor, young and old—the campaign executions targeted a wide range of audiences.
Implementation
Given the mayor's involvement and the high-profile nature of the campaign, we coordinated with media outlets to maximize the impact of donated media. In addition, we worked closely with the mayor's communications team to ensure that PR and social channels had consistent messaging and were closely timed to key related events on the mayor's calendar.
The campaign featured eight individual creative executions posted in 315 locations throughout the city, on billboards (both traditional and digital), bus shelters, benches, kiosks, and on the City of L.A.'s social channels.
The campaign ran in two flights, October–November 2016 and February–March 2017.
The campaign was also supported by a new website, www.nodvla.org, which united domestic violence resources and support groups in one online hub.
The campaign was launched in October 2016 (Domestic Violence Awareness Month) and generated over 180 million impressions across the City of Los Angeles.
On launch day, the new website experienced its highest traffic by triple digits—and continues to experience heavier traffic than its previous incarnation. The campaign is still running in-market, and while the budget precluded pre/post-awareness tracking, the more telling measure of the campaign's success will be an increase in domestic violence reporting across LA in 2017. We have every indication this will be the case, as the website's DART page—linking to immediate crisis intervention and emergency assistance—experiences the highest "average time spent" of all the pages on www.nodvla.org.
