The overarching goal of the Hippocrites campaign is to bring awareness to multiple sides of the reproductive healthcare struggle since the overturning of Roe v Wade in June 2022.
When that ruling happened in the Dobbs vs Jackson case, and the right to abortion was no longer protected at the federal level, women’s bodies became under siege. Today, more and more states are criminalizing patients for accessing—and doctors for providing—essential reproductive care.
Women’s lives and wellbeing are increasingly at risk, and doctors are being forced every day to make decisions that go against their Hippocratic Oath.
Our north star that underpinned our every move was: “Law enforcement has no place in the exam room.” Because it’s these very laws, restrictions, and bans that are forcing doctors to break their Hippocratic Oath and act hypocritically in their healthcare practices.
To provoke thought and build intrigue around this impact idea, we coined a new word—“Hippocrites.” Derived from a combination of “Hippocratic” and “hypocrites,” it serves as a rallying cry unique to this campaign, and is defined as “when current reproductive laws force doctors to break their sacred Hippocratic Oath and become hypocrites against their will.”
To bring this word and rallying cry to life, we created a 360º campaign, anchored in a moving and captivating 6-minute docudrama film. When it comes to abortion bans, media often tells the story of the woman—not the doctor; but we wanted to equally shine a spotlight on both sides of the struggle. The Hippocrites film uniquely and poignantly shows the effects our post-Roe world has had not just on women, but also on the physicians who swore to protect them.
Leading up to the 2-year anniversary of the Dobbs ruling on June 24, 2022, and the film launch, we seeded a variety of arresting teasers out across social media. On the 2-year anniversary, the full-length Hippocrites short film was introduced to the world via a comprehensive media push that included a website, both traditional and digital out-of-home, radio, PR, video, search, display, and programmatic. Given how relevant and politically-charged this topic is within our country right now, we were able to negotiate donated media spend for the majority of placements.
The initial five-week media push garnered 74,485,780 impressions across traditional and digital out-of-home (OOH), radio, video, search, display, and programmatic.
The majority of impressions were served via traditional and digital OOH across New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Phoenix—from wild postings and sidewalk decals to urban panels and taxi/rideshares.
OOH creative was contextual to placement; for example, messaging on sidewalk postings referenced how women’s reproductive rights were being “trampled on.” Furthermore, because media was donated, OOH creative ran in markets where inventory was open vs in the swing states we had initially prioritized.
There were 1MM video ad views of the four :15 teasers and the :30 trailer that had a 100% Video Completion Rate (VCR); overall VCR of the campaign was 94%.
Within the first week, the campaign was picked up by a variety of media outlets, including MM+M, Campaign US, PR Week, AdAge, AdWeek, and Media Post.
NOTE: Given the sensitive nature of this topic, we had to be very delicate and judicious with how and where we communicated our message, making sure to stay laser-focused on a human rights/healthcare angle vs a political one.
