The Campaign

STOP IT AT THE START is a direct, compelling rallying-call to Australians to address violence against women at the seed of the problem: DISRESPECT. The confronting idea shows how violence against women doesn’t just start – it grows from a young age and it begins with the disrespect that comes from gender inequality. When influencers (parents, teachers, coaches, etc) make excuses like “boys will be boys” or “he did it because he likes you”, they unwittingly allow violence against women to grow.

Creative Execution

The campaign launched nationwide via a press conference and by distributing a press release containing the film to the media. The confronting film shows how violence against women doesn’t just start – it grows from a young age and it begins with the disrespect that comes from gender inequality. When influencers (parents, teachers, coaches, etc) make excuses like “he did it because he likes you”, they unwittingly allow violence against women to grow. Four days later, we began using paid media to distribute the video on television, cinema and online.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Since launch, the campaign has had an incredible impact, generating more than 197 earned media pieces across TV, digital, radio and newspapers, and each of those sparked a conversation involving thousands of Australians, as well as sparking global debate. The film received more than 16.3 million views after just two weeks (6.5 million views before it even aired on TV) and more than 473,000 reactions, comments and shares on social media. School teachers have used the film to teach students about respect. As a campaign about prevention, it’s too early to provide stats on the impact this campaign has had on reported violence or deaths due to domestic violence, or to get a read on how it will change attitudes and behaviours across Australia. But its impact on the public psyche has been instant and dramatic. True success will only be seen in generations to come.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

STOP IT AT THE START is a multi-faceted, public education program that has successfully sparked conversation about violence against women and respect, in Australia. There’s no silver bullet to reduce violence against women, so we needed a campaign that would encourage Australians to seek out further information and education, by visiting the website Respect.gov.au. We also wanted to spark a direct conversation between parents and children, in the media and between Australians more broadly. As you’ll see, the creative solution successfully drove these responses, with thousands of Australians visiting the website and millions joining the discussion.

Over 90 focus groups were conducted to get a deep understanding of the problem. We learned that in order to create meaningful, lasting change, we’d need to target the people who influence 10 to 17-year-old Australians: their parents, teachers, sports coaches and peers. We needed to get influencers to: 1.See the link between gender inequality, disrespect and violence 2.Realise their own role in growing violence 3.Respond to disrespect in an appropriate way 4.Have a proactive conversation about respect The research also revealed some very common phrases that people use to excuse disrespect, like: “boys will be boys”, or “he did it because he likes you”, or “it’s not like he hit you”. These phrases have become common. They’re extremely dangerous because they encourage violence by blaming the victim, empathising with the male and minimising the disrespect. We saw an opportunity to turn these dangerous phrases into triggers to teach respect.