White Ribbon Day’s Stop Kit via March One helps Aussies to take stand on violence against women

This year’s White Ribbon Day helped end the hesitation around intervening in acts of violence against women, engaging three times more Australians than ever before with its STOP Kit designed to help people see the signs, seek support and stop the cycle of abuse within their community.

Australia fundraising agency March One was briefed to refresh the current White Ribbon Day creative. After consulting with White Ribbon Ambassadors, contacts across policy and frontline services and the community, they discovered that while awareness of the issue was strong, Australians didn’t know what to do with the information.

Says Ben Coverdale, creative director and owner of March One:”Australians wanted to make a difference in the fight to end violence against women so we designed an information kit called the STOP Kit to give them the tools to do something about it. In many ways, we were reacting to the tidal wave of support for women’s rights following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

“The STOP kit outlines ways to spot the signs of violence, offer support and create change to derail the cycle of offending. We were able to develop a tool to improve on what the White Ribbon team were already doing well, and add value, rather than going down the expensive route of starting again. Effectively, we were giving Australians something they were asking for – the tools to help. It’s that simple.”

The STOP kit, an acronym for See, Talk, Offer support and Prevent, was designed as a brochure, wallet card and digital download. Under each of the key pillars, action steps were provided to help Australians recognise and deal with the emotionally charged circumstances that surround domestic violence.

Says Cloverdale: “Importantly, the STOP Kit provides Australians with the numbers and locations where they can access professional assistance and support.”

The campaign also asked Aussies to make an oath to stand up against violence towards women in an effort to engage and create a community of support for victims of abuse.

Managing director and owner of March One, Greg Bechly, says they deployed social media campaigns in support of the White Ribbon Day and STOP kit that included Facebook advertising, cross-promotion across Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, along with an eastern states radio campaign and a digital advertising campaign across News Corp assets, all aimed at increasing the oath commitments and facilitation of STOP kit downloads.

Says Bechly: “The campaign resulted in three times more Australians visiting the website, over 50% more Australian being reached on Facebook with a 93% engagement growth, a reach uplift of 240% on the twitter channel and over 5,700 Australians taking the oath. The numbers speak for themselves, and importantly, the campaign gave critical meaning and genuine life-changing advice to those wanting to make difference.”

Says Eliza Arrowsmith, marketing and communication manager of White Ribbon Australia: “This year’s campaign was incredibly successful because it closed the loop in our communications by educating Australians on what they can do once they have identified the issue of violence in their life or that of friends and family. The STOP kit has ironically created the impetus for Australians to stand up and stop the cycle of violence against women.”