Bans Off My Body is a body-and sex-positive campaign about claiming your body as your own — a rallying cry for autonomy and equality. It expresses what’s at stake in this moment when access to safe, legal abortion and other reproductive health care are under assault.
We aimed to:
Elevate our position and brand against these harmful bans on abortion and bodily autonomy.
Promote and build momentum around support for abortion care access.
Provide current and future supporters with clear ways they can stand up and take action.
Insert our messaging into the public narrative to drive the conversation.
Collect 500,000 petition signatures to be delivered to lawmakers.
We know that nearly 80% of voters want to protect Roe v. Wade and that there is no state in this country where making abortion illegal is popular. Yet politicians continue to attack abortion rights and severely limit access, specifically among Black and Latinx communities. An unprecedented number of extreme abortion bans are being enacted across the country in states like Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi — many of which don’t include exceptions for rape or incest, could jail doctors simply for providing care, and could allow the state to investigate women’s miscarriages. This is an attempt to ban abortion outright.
Playing off the term “hands off” and the opposition to these abortion bans, we created the Bans Off My Body campaign with a number of digital and social activations, utilizing our owned channels as well as collaborations with digital partners. We sought to engage with current brand supporters and sound the alarm to the majority of Americans who believe abortion should be legal and accessible. This integrated campaign focused on publicizing the nationwide support for bodily autonomy and mobilizing people to protect abortion access.
The digital strategy for this campaign included:
Harnessing bold values statements about being in control of your body to relate to new supporters and energize existing ones.
Posting campaign graphics on our social channels, and inserting our campaign assets and hashtag #BansOffMyBody into the national dialogue.
Ensuring that all abortion access-related content across owned channels was tied to the Bans Off campaign.
Educating social media followers about the attacks on abortion access, and highlighting the harm that can come from these attacks.
Placing a six-figure online ad buy to educate supporters about the abortion bans and motivate them to sign the Bans Off My Body petition.
Developing a campaign website, BansOffMyBody.org, which allows users to see abortion restrictions across the country and directs them to ways they can take action.
Partnering with artists to create a cultural moment that kicked off a weekend of digital postings by artists like Dua Lipa, Beck, Paulina Rubio, Miguel, and many others.
Running Spanish-language assets using the line, Es Mío, Yo Decido, and engaging artists such as Judy Reyes, Justina Machado, Gina Torres, Amara la Negra, Diane Guerrero, and Selenis Leyva.
Bans Off My Body successfully allowed us to educate audiences about the abortion bans. We created a space for artists and influencers to engage with their fans on a topic they are passionate about. And we made it clear to anti-abortion lawmakers that we will not sit silently as they take away our rights.
In 2019, this campaign published 244 pieces of content across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram that:
Engaged with abortion access supporters, collecting over 522,000 petition signatures (and counting!).
Generated more than 100 times the typical traffic to our website, and 1.9M+ impressions and 112K+ engagements on our owned channels in the first week.
Grew the PPFA and PPACT social media audience by 50,346 and 9,979 followers respectively in the first month of the campaign.
Partnered with artists and musicians to engage new audiences, with 63 artists posting about Bans Off My Body, reaching 125.6M+ followers with 505.1K engagements across social platforms during the launch weekend. This collaboration generated 2,856 hashtag mentions and 6.1 million impressions. Artists and musicians have continued to engage with Planned Parenthood around Bans Off My Body and other campaigns, creating an ongoing funnel for activation.
Generated 10.5M+ impressions/users reached and 617k+ engagements by the end of 2019. The campaign hashtag #BansOffMyBody has been used 12,148 times, resulting in 172.5M digital impressions.
