TBWA\Helsinki's New Outdoor Ads Helps Helsinki Police Department Tackle Domestic Abuse

Finland is topping the domestic violence charts globally. Helsinki Police department launched a series of outdoor campaigns to increase awareness about an important subject - domestic violence. Together with Helsinki’s Police department and outdoor advertising company JCDecaux, TBWA\Helsinki created this vital campaign with the goal of encouraging people to report acts of domestic violence. The campaign is an example of hyper-local and reactive advertising in a traditional medium. The trigger for the placement of the ads were real calls to 112 (or 911 in the US). The outdoor posters appear immediately after the call was made to areas where domestic violence have just been reported. The campaign utilised the 15 closest poster sites from the address where the actual report has been made and the posters remained live for only 48 hours. These targeted 48-hour campaigns took place around Helsinki within two weeks in six different locations.

There have been so far two roll-outs, the first in December 2016 and second in April 2017

Daylight : a selfie

Night: Raw evidence photo picture

So in other words after dark the background lights switches on and revealed the signs of domestic violence. According to the police data 88% of the act of violence happen during evening and night. The goal of the campaign is to create media attention and buzz to prevent acts of domestic violence. In a way, this is world's first outdoor campaign that you hope that no one would see.