Mouvement du Nid: Girls Of Paradise, 1

Credits & Description:

Entrant Company McCANN Paris
Agency Network McCANN Worldgroup
Production Company Medialab Technology, Paris
Creative Agency McCANN Paris, Clichy
Executive Creative Director Riccardo Fregoso
Executive Creative Director Julien Chiapolini
Art Director Christophe Rambaux
Copywriter Gilles Ollier
CEO Bruno Tallent
Account Coordinator Coline Déchelette
Worldwide Account Director Fiona Ferrier-Weil
Digital Account Manager Selim Boukhanef
Strategic Planner Shadi Razavi
Art Buyer Véronique Leblanc
Art Buyer Delphine Devaux
Producer Isabelle Créchet
Producer Caroline de Génis
Chief technology officer Dragan Kontic
Technical Project Manager Vianney de Villier
Technical Project Manager Clément Hardouin
Front End Developer Pierre-Yves Chassaigne
Managing Director Agnieszka Kozbial
Website URL: http://girlsofparadise.sex/
Sound Producer Capitaine Plouf
The radio message was part of a digital experience developed for the Mouvement du Nid, a nonprofit organization involved in the fight against prostitution.
We created a fake escort website, girlsofparadise.sex, on which the prostitutes are already dead, but the clients don't know it yet. Each story is a reconstruction of a real case. When the potential client called or started to chat with one of them he thought was a real prostitute, he was tricked into hearing her real, tragic story. We created 3 radio spots out of these recordings. The radio message aired at a relevant time, one during which the French Parliamentarians was debating over a bill that would make it illegal to pay for sex.
The campaign furthered the Mouvement du Nid's cause in helping draw attention to the importance of passing this bill.
The message begins with an announcement that the recording is authentic. A short conversation between the client and someone we think is Ines ensues. The client asks for information on her services and rates. Instead of giving the requested details, the girl answers that she is not Ines but a friend of hers and that Ines won't be available as she was thrown off a bridge by her pimp. The client is astonished. The message ends by stating it is a true story, that prostitution is a violent environment and invites the listener to help the Mouvement du Nid to help abolish prostitution.
Synopsis:
For 70 years, Mouvement du Nid has fought to protect prostitutes from the violent system of prostitution. Until April 2016, prostitution was legal in France. Prostitutes had a mortality rate 40 times higher than the rest of the French population, and 60-80% of them suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, much like victims of torture. (source: http://www.haut-conseil-egalite.gouv.fr/violences-de-genre/reperes-statistiques-79/). Most clients of prostitution did not realize that by paying for sex, they were helping to finance a violent system. Mouvement du Nid’s brief was simple: spark a conversation about prostitution, shifting focus from the sex workers to their clients, whose complicity with the system enabled violence. The ultimate campaign objective was to escalate the conversation enough to influence the upcoming vote in the French Assembly on the first national law penalizing clients of prostitution.
Campaign Description:
We created a fake escort website, girlsofparadise.sex. What clients visiting the site didn’t know was that all the beautiful girls pictured there were already dead. Each woman’s profile was a reconstruction of a real story. When clients called or tried to chat with one of the women, they were informed of the tragic truth. Ines, for example, was found dead in the apartment where she entertained clients, with fifty-three stab wounds. And when clients heard that story, their reactions ranged from disbelief to horror to rage. We recorded these phone calls and made radio spots out of them. The radio commercials were broadcast in the days leading up to the vote in the French Assembly, confronting people with the reality of clients’ roles in the perpetration of violence, and provoking national conversation. And then we created a film about the campaign, which created more conversation around the world.
Execution:
We designed girlsofparadise.sex to appeal to our core target: men under 35 living in cities. We advertised the site with flyers and set up a call center to respond to potential clients. The site launched March 18, 2016, and received more than 600 calls in its first week. We recorded the calls and then used the audio recordings in radio ads, which amplified the conversation. These ads, which were broadcast in the days leading up to the vote in the French Assembly, provoked national debate about the importance of penalizing clients of sex workers. And then, after the vote in April 2016, we launched a case study film about the campaign, to expand the conversation about the violence of prostitution beyond the borders of France. This approach, in which we initiated a conversation with the clients themselves, and then broadened the discussion, resulted in societal change and international conversation.
Relevancy:
Girls of Paradise helped Mouvement du Nid, a French NGO, provoke an international conversation about prostitution. The campaign shocked people into realizing that those who hire sex workers are accomplices in the violence of the prostitution system. Before the campaign, there was little awareness of Mouvement du Nid, despite years of dedication to preventing violence against prostitutes. Girls of Paradise changed everything. The campaign received massive international press coverage, generated widespread discussion, and swayed French public opinion. In the wake of the campaign, the French government passed a landmark law penalizing clients of prostitution.
Outcome:
Tier 1:Despite a very small media spend (only radio ads), Girls of Paradise sparked an enormous conversation, thanks to earned media. The campaign received 57.8 million organic impressions, with coverage in 31 countries. More than 200 journalists wrote about the campaign, in prominent publications such as Le Figaro, The New York Times, El Mundo, Corriere Della Sera, the Economic Times of India, and the Huffington Post. Girls of Paradise was also discussed on public radio, by NPR in the United States and by France Inter. Tier 2The campaign changed perceptions of prostitution. In just one week of the campaign, girlsofparadise.sex received more than 600 phone calls and 8000 texts and live chat messages. Those conversations demonstrated an obvious change of attitude, as the men heard the tragic stories about the girls they were trying to reach. And the campaign contributed to a change in public sentiment about the culpability of people who pay for sex. In April 2016, the French Assembly voted, for the first time, to penalize clients of prostitution. With this landmark law, France became a pioneer.We didn’t just generate conversation and debate in France. Girls of Paradise was used as an example in two international summits about prostitution, organized by CAP International, the international Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution, in New Delhi (January 2017) and by the United Nations in New York (March 2017).The campaign also raised awareness for Mouvement du Nid, which has since seen a 77% increase in donations.
Strategy:
Our strategy was to instigate a national conversation to shock French people out of their complacency. First we provoked young clients (urban men, under 35), who were not aware of the violence against prostitutes; then we targeted the general public, to amplify the conversation; and finally, we helped lobby for a law to penalize prostitution clients in France. Because 62% of prostitutes are solicited online (Source : 2015 study commissioned by the European Community to Mouvement du Nid/Psytel), we initiated conversation by creating a website for a fake escort service, girlsofparadise.sex. After shocking our core target, we escalated the conversation with radio ads, created using recordings of the calls to the site. We ran the ads in the days leading up to the crucial vote in the French Assembly. Finally, we created a film documenting the campaign, which received international press coverage and escalated the conversation into a global one.