Refuge
Two award-winning campaigns for the domestic abuse charity. (A third is in production now in partnership with Mastercard, of which the Refuge CEO has said, “This idea will save lives”.)
The first, Surfaces, a TV, VOD, & Digital campaign that highlighted the horrors of lockdown for abuse victims. The campaign was led by a hard-hitting short film starring Maxine Peake. I wrote this and was delighted that positive feedback from victims was overwhelming and the film was taken up by the UK government for educational purposes. It won and featured at award shows and film festivals, including Cannes, but my proudest moment was when a colleague said she’d shown it to her sister who, after watching it, realised she was an abuse victim and needed to get out. A trailer is below, followed by the full 11-minute film.
And the full 11-minute film, if you fancy a coffee-break…
The second Refuge campaign is Turn To Us, a gut-wrenching but highly rewarding project I was ECD on, leading, improving the craft and turning it from a simple press ad idea into a powerful, integrated campaign that helped change and save women’s and children’s lives. This won a Cannes Lion, a One Show Pencil and six Golds and three Silvers at Creative Circle. Again, it was the number of women helped by Refuge as a result of this campaign that was the best reward.
The case film is below.
And the campaign got the backing of the most important people right at the time a new Domestic Abuse Bill was being introduced in Parliament. The best kind of results.
