The Brief

To celebrate their 25th year, Gabriela launched the iVow signature campaign, renewing their commitment to abused women. The signatures would hopefully sway legislators to pass even more stringent laws against domestic violence. The campaign itself was targeted to all Filipinos, which included members and supporters of the women's organization. Initially, Gabriela had a flyer in mind, but all too often such executions are dismissed and discarded. We proposed an interactive installation which would encourage more people to sign by simply showing them that each pledge could indeed lessen a victim's pain.

Creative Execution

As with all signature campaigns, there is a certain disbelief in the minds of people as to whether their solitary pledge could make a difference. In this execution, we clearly showed people that it could. With each new pledge the bruises on the woman were lessened until eventually she emerged unharmed. This tied in seamlessly to our objective of totally eradicating spousal abuse in the country with the passing of more stringent laws against the act.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Though an online signature campaign might have been easier, internet penetration in the Philippines is still not that pervasive. And given the objective of convincing legislators to act, actual signatures and pledges are still more effective. In past signature drives, Gabriela had tried distributing flyers, but the efforts would bring in no more than a few thousand signatures. This was our benchmark for the success of the interactive poster.

Results

"Bruise" shattered the Gabriela's previous signature drive efforts. On the day of the launch itself, we were able to elicit pledges from over a thousand people, including high-profile politicians, artists, media people and celebrities, quadrupling the most successful response rates in previous efforts. Due to its success, the posters were brought around the country and even to satellite Gabriela offices around Asia. To date, over 30,000 pledges have already been collected.