Why is this work relevant for Direct?

ShopForHelp was developed as a response to the alarming increase in domestic violence brought about by the introduction of lockdown measures in Singapore. While support helplines have always been available, victims of domestic violence used to have opportunities to leave their homes and seek help in person. But with the lockdown in place, that was no longer possible. To provide assistance, we needed an alternative avenue that would help reach a wider demographics of women at home, urgently. The solution: A helpline hidden within an e-commerce site, during a time when online shopping was at an all-time high.

Background

Since the introduction of lockdown (“circuit breaker”) measures in Singapore from April 2020, there has been a significant increase in domestic violence. Gender-equality group AWARE received a total of 752 calls to its Helplines in May 2020 (a 137% increase in family violence reports 436% increase in emotional and psychological distress vs 2019). This was a new, worrying, all-time high record for the organization, whose Helpline had been in place since 1991. Yet, the true extent of domestic violence is likely even higher as many cases go unaccounted for, due to victims being unable to seek help. AWARE urgently wanted to reach more women with their helpline. The objective was to find new, innovative ways to make AWARE's services accessible to women while trapped at home, lacking privacy.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

We leveraged on a seemingly frivolous activity—online shopping—and turned it into the most unlikely gateway for assistance where women can 'Shop For Help’ - literally. The idea was to hide the mechanics for asking for help in a place the abuser would never look: women's fashion e-commerce site. To do that, we teamed up with Singapore’s largest female shopping site, Love Bonito, and created a promotion to disguise a helpline that allows women to secretly seek help while they pretend to shop. What appears as just another regular promotion, is revealed to be a hidden message from AWARE. Women can communicate with a trained counsellor and get legal advice on what to do, without alerting their abusers.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

As the pandemic progressed, e-commerce sales grew by 71.1%. Singaporeans flocked online to buy everything from food staples to fitness equipment, skincare to loungewear. People were not only purchasing items, but actively searching and browsing more. With this, we knew that the best approach to reach our target audience was through online shopping. But it was not going to be that straightforward. In order to remain stealthy, we needed to make sure that the campaign was visible to mostly, if not only, women. For that to work successfully and quickly, we wanted to work with a female-focused brand that already had a large female customer base, in order to gain a high number of eyeballs on AWARE's service. We found our partner in leading retailer Love, Bonito, whose website garners 360K visits per month. By providing a disguise, we wanted women to feel safe enough to ask for help.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Timing was crucial for this campaign to help prevent more cases of domestic violence from happening in lockdown. We knew our target audience might be fearful and pressed for time, so we designed our campaign mechanics simple enough that they could access help in as few steps as possible. Upon finding the right e-commerce partner, we focused on making the 'promotion' disguised. We developed a seamless page integration so our 'promotion' looks the same as the rest of the site, but with content from AWARE. These hidden messages inform women of help available to them, and how to chat with AWARE. Like any 'ordinary' Love, Bonito promotion, we shared the campaign on Instagram Stories and used the Swipe Up feature to direct to our page. This way, we could drive organic WOM among the audience. The campaign ran throughout Singapore's circuit breaker, when women needed it most.

List the results (30% of vote)

After the campaign launched, 18% of all chat sessions were referred to AWARE via ShopForHelp. This illustrates how important this touchpoint became in AWARE's overall community outreach strategy during lockdown. The ShopForHelp campaign also helped expand AWARE's reach to new demographics, connecting a whole new group of women—Love Bonito's community—to AWARE's support. AWARE is now in talks with other e-commerce sites, including skincare, makeup, and maternity retailers to expand the initiative.

Please tell us about the social behaviour that inspired the work

Domestic violence can happen across all social spectrums. Victims are not just the vulnerable or poor, but include successful career women and those in high-income brackets. This is also the case for online shoppers target audience - buying online was increasing across socioeconomic and demographics. Retail e-commerce sales grew by 71.1% in 2020. During the circuit-breaker, brands quickly digitalized to meet this behavior change. Numerous 'Stay Home' collections and promotion were launched to address consumer needs. Tapping into this provided us with a new way to reach women with Aware's services.