Context:

One in four women in Romania has been through at least one episode of domestic abuse. ANAIS Association, the leading local NGO fighting against domestic abuse needed to put a spotlight on this dangerous phenomenon and raise funds to help more victims.

On March 4th, 2022, Romanian authorities announced that starting March 8th, all mask mandates will be lifted nationwide, as COVID-19 cases have diminished. On March 8th, Romania celebrated International Women's Day together with the rest of the world. 

Idea:

In just 3 days, we developed a PSA campaign that hijacked the breaking news about the mask mandates to raise awareness of the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Romanian women who will continue to have their noses and mouths covered. Either by the palm of an abusing partner or by their own palm, as they contemplate in disbelief the other pandemic still unfolding: domestic violence in all its forms: from publishing intimate content without consent to prohibiting meetings with friends, from embezzling family income to forbidding access to religious practice or controlling a partner on the pretext of jealousy. 

All the executions were based on real stories of domestic violence from Romanian women who had approached ANAIS Association, the leading Romanian NGO against domestic abuse, for psychological and legal counseling. 

Results:

The real-time campaign helped to attract in just one week more donations than in the previous six months. But the most important result is triggering a nation-wide conversation about a topic which, despite its seriousness, had started to become largely ignored. The initiative made headlines both locally and globally totalling and 1.3 million PR impressions in a country of just 19 million.