The Campaign

Idea: Confront high-income communities, (and in doing so, New Zealand) with the disturbing reality that violence is occurring even where we least expect it.

Creative Execution

Within the magazine, we created an article showcasing a new architecturally designed home in an upmarket Auckland suburb, along with the seemingly regular family who lived there. Featured on the cover and contents, the story ran as eight consecutive pages, which looked and read just like regular content. Almost. In the words and pictures we placed disturbing tell-tale signs that violence was occurring. Some of these were subtle only giving themselves away on a second read. Others were more obvious. Only on the final page did we reveal the truth –violence can happen in any home, even homes like this. Also available on the magazine’s website (along with the regular articles), and on their Facebook page, we encouraged sharing and commenting on the article to increase its reach. HOME Magazine readership: 110,000. However, the campaign reached well beyond this as our target shared the article through social media and PR.

Results

Starting from a reader base of 107,000, the campaign reached ¼ of the whole New Zealand population (over 10X the magazine’s readership). Over 12% of readers either sought help or offered it as a direct result of the campaign – Bauer Research. Visits to the family violence site increased 15%. The campaign was covered by both of New Zealand’s news channels, received 280,000 Facebook engagements and over 1000 Twitter shares. The magazine was the most talked about edition in the publication’s 79-year history and has been celebrated as a much-needed first step by both the NZ Police and Ministry of Social Development.

This campaign directly targeted and reached a specific, hard to reach market – high-income New Zealanders dealing with and living alongside domestic violence. It then elicited a measurable response from this market. The publication in which the execution lived was also sent direct to subscribers living within these high-income communities – literally to the home, or to the neighbours of the family where the problem was occurring.

Strategy: Show violence occurring even where we least expect it, even in the most seemingly perfect of homes. We partnered with NZ’s premium home and lifestyle magazine – HOME – and showed violence happening in one of its ‘perfect’ homes. This magazine, with its high-income readership of 107,000 (25% subscribers), enabled us to reach victims and communities where the violence was actually happening. We also needed to create a wider conversation with the New Zealand public, which spread our message beyond the doors of high-income communities and to the masses. The more people on the ground equipped with the truth, the better. Media and high profile social-media personalities were also sent the magazine directly, and encouraged to share. The campaign asked readers to take action should they suspect violence is occurring and visit the government website for more on how to help.