Most parents don’t know that adopting a teen is an option, and when they do think about adopting a teen, they fear they’ll fail a child who has been failed in the past. This leads to lower adoption rates for teenagers, who wind up spending 50% more time in foster care than younger kids. The goal of this project was to change that perception and increase inquiries about teen adoption.
Teens who are adopted are often seen as the “lucky ones,” however, our interviews with the families almost entirely focused on the positive impact their adopted teens had on them. The families actually considered themselves to be real the “lucky ones.” Using hours of conversation with adoptive families as source material, we created a campaign that cemented this idea -- that “you can’t imagine the reward” that you’ll gain when adopting a teenager. These first-hand accounts brought a genuine warmth to a campaign that consisted of broadcast spots, digital videos, social, radio, print, and out-of-home placements.
The work was featured across a variety of media, appearing on the Today Show and FOX, national web outlets like US News and The Drum, as well as relevant print publications like Parents Magazine. This, combined with a robust social media campaign, led to over 531 million earned media impressions, and reached over 1 million people organically in its first week. It became the highest performing Facebook post ever for the charity organization, with over 7,000 shares, and AdoptUsKids saw a spike of 353,000 users visit their site in November 2019 alone. But most importantly, over 1,000 people requested to be contacted about teen adoption via adoptuskids.org.
