KAFA: VOTE FOR US. WE’LL VOTE FOR YOU. [02.00]

Credits & Description:

Category: Other
Media: TV, Online
Agency: Leo Burnett Beirut
Client: KAFA
Brand: Women’s rights NGO
Company: Leo Burnett Beirut, Beirut
Target: Lebanon · Europe, Middle East & Africa
Chief Creative Officer: Bechara Mouzannar, Leo Burnett Beirut
Regional Executive Creative Director: Malek Ghorayeb, Leo Burnett Beirut
Managing Director: Nada Abi Saleh, Leo Burnett Beirut
Managing Director PR Levant: Jo Chemali, Commando Marketing
Creative Director: Areej Mahmoud, Leo Burnett Beirut
Creative Director: Rana Khoury, Leo Burnett Beirut
Creative Director: Caroline Farra, Leo Burnett Beirut
Creative Director: Lea Salibi, Leo Burnett Beirut
Art Director: Christina Salibi , Leo Burnett Beirut
Art Director: Fabienne Weiszegger, Leo Burnett Beirut
PR Account Executive: Ghassan Jawhar, Leo Comm Beirut
Strategic Planning : Jean-Georges Prince, Leo Burnett Beirut
Language: Arabic
Objectives: Awareness, Direct Response
Tags: Other, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Arabic, Awareness, Direct Response, TV, Online  
Campaign Description
In Lebanon, there was no law to protect women from domestic violence.
As such, domestic violence was a big taboo, covered by the law of silence, and women did not report easily their abusers, as they were scared of the consequences in the absence of judicial procedures that could protect them.
For years, Kafa, a leading Women’s Rights NGO, has been working relentlessly on developing a draft law project to protect women from domestic violence.
The law went back and forth for years, and remained for a long time dormant in the parliament’s drawers.
On April first 2014, the parliament was meeting to pass several laws.
So, three days before the parliament meeting, Kafa came to us for help.
We had three days to gather the community and put pressure on members of Parliament to PASS THE LAW on Domestic Violence.
Campaign Goals
In Lebanon, the same Members of Parliament have been in office for decades.
And these same MPs were getting ready again for the upcoming elections.
Also in Lebanon, women constitute 52% of the voting force.
So we decided to threaten our MP’s with the one weapon that could actually hurt them: OUR VOTES.
In order to establish this idea of accountability and get people to talk for the first time to their political representatives at an equal level, we invited people to put a condition on their votes:
WE WILL ONLY VOTE FOR THE MPS WHO WILL VOTE ON THE LAW AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. IT WAS THAT SIMPLE.
In our country, when the Lebanese vote during elections, they soak their thumb in blue ink. So to symbolize our threat, we used this voting symbol and asked citizens to use their voting thumb, replacing the blue ink with the red color, the color of blood and injuries of violated women.
And we asked them to post their red thumbs online, using the hashtag #NOLAWNOVOTE and post them mainly on KAFA’s FACEBOOK PAGE
Like wildfire, people from all walks of life, celebrities, brands joined our movement resulting in an unprecedented wave of engagement
Campaign Performance
The campaign was no longer just a campaign but it became a popular movement. Online, people, women and men, were posting their pictures with their red thumbs.
Brands spoofed our Red Thumb Icon into their products and posted the images on their Facebook Pages.
Celebrities were changing their photos into a photo with a Red thumb
• More than 20,000 physical and digital red thumbs gathered
• A 700% increase in online conversations about domestic violence
• A 350% increase in comments on Kafa’s Facebook page
• 1.7 million USD in earned media
2 million people exposed to the campaign from the TV news coverage in a country of 4 million
Most Importantly, the LAW PASSED.
And a month later, a first protection order, of many more to come was issued by a court in favor of an abused women. Few weeks after, a violent husband was sentenced to jail.