Who: Aura Freedom, with Forsman & Bodenfors for strategy and creative; Folktale, Nimiopere, Alter Ego and TA2 for production and post production; Veritas Communications for PR and influencer; and Twenty6Two for media.
What: “The Body Bag For Her,” a new awareness campaign to back a call for the Federal government to declare femicide a national emergency in Canada.
When & Where: The campaign launched just ahead of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (Nov. 25). There’s a 90-second online film, with a 15-second cutdown for broadcast, as well as social/digital, influencer, print and out-of-home, all running on donated media.
Why: The rate at which men kill women in Canada simply because they are women is increasing post- pandemic. A recent report from the “Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability” found that a woman is killed in Canada every 48 hours, usually by a man she knows.
"Femicide is not the same as homicide,” said Marissa Kokkoros, founder and executive director, Aura Freedom, the Toronto-based grassroots organization that works to end violence against women and human trafficking.
Aura describes femicide as the killing of woman, often by an intimate partner, and driven by misogyny and the need to maintain power and control over the woman. By declaring femicide an emergency, Ottawa can apply additional resources to preventive solutions that address its root causes.
"Femicide is an emergency, and these deaths are completely preventable,” said Kokkoros. “Until we treat femicide with the urgency it deserves and choose to value the lives of women and girls, we will continue to lose them at alarming rates."
How: The campaign is inspired by the marketing trope of making a product for woman that is nothing more than a pink version of an existing product.
“It’s hard for people to care about something they have never heard of,” said Alexandra McGuirk-Penedo, senior art director, Forsman & Bodenfors.” Femicide is defined by the why; women are being killed because they are women. To make Canadians understand femicide, we had to feminize homicide.”
To do that, the agency created a 90-second film to anchor the campaign, using a clever misdirect to deliver the important message with maximum impact.
It opens with the look and feel of a spot for a high-end women’s fashion brand. Over shots of sewing machines, colourful threads, design sketches and fabric being cut, a woman talks about what is being made: “There’s a lot of time and effort put into creating a piece like this,” she says.
As the gently uplifting music builds, the viewer realizes she’s talking about a pink bag, though it eventually becomes clear this is not a handbag or purse for any fashion label. After the words “The bag women in Canada are dying for” appears on screen, the music stops and the full reveal is delivered: “The Body Bag for Her.”
“Every 48 hours in Canada a woman is killed, most often by a man. Because she is a woman,” appears over the body bag, before the film closes with a CTA: sign the petition at AuraFreedom.org to have femicide declared an emergency in Canada.
What: “The Body Bag For Her,” a new awareness campaign to back a call for the Federal government to declare femicide a national emergency in Canada.When & Where: The campaign launched just ahead of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (Nov. 25). There’s a 90-second online film, with a 15-second cutdown for broadcast, as well as social/digital, influencer, print and out-of-home, all running on donated media.
Why: The rate at which men kill women in Canada simply because they are women is increasing post- pandemic. A recent report from the “Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability” found that a woman is killed in Canada every 48 hours, usually by a man she knows.
"Femicide is not the same as homicide,” said Marissa Kokkoros, founder and executive director, Aura Freedom, the Toronto-based grassroots organization that works to end violence against women and human trafficking.
Aura describes femicide as the killing of woman, often by an intimate partner, and driven by misogyny and the need to maintain power and control over the woman. By declaring femicide an emergency, Ottawa can apply additional resources to preventive solutions that address its root causes.
"Femicide is an emergency, and these deaths are completely preventable,” said Kokkoros. “Until we treat femicide with the urgency it deserves and choose to value the lives of women and girls, we will continue to lose them at alarming rates."
How: The campaign is inspired by the marketing trope of making a product for woman that is nothing more than a pink version of an existing product.
“It’s hard for people to care about something they have never heard of,” said Alexandra McGuirk-Penedo, senior art director, Forsman & Bodenfors.” Femicide is defined by the why; women are being killed because they are women. To make Canadians understand femicide, we had to feminize homicide.”
To do that, the agency created a 90-second film to anchor the campaign, using a clever misdirect to deliver the important message with maximum impact.
It opens with the look and feel of a spot for a high-end women’s fashion brand. Over shots of sewing machines, colourful threads, design sketches and fabric being cut, a woman talks about what is being made: “There’s a lot of time and effort put into creating a piece like this,” she says.
As the gently uplifting music builds, the viewer realizes she’s talking about a pink bag, though it eventually becomes clear this is not a handbag or purse for any fashion label. After the words “The bag women in Canada are dying for” appears on screen, the music stops and the full reveal is delivered: “The Body Bag for Her.”
“Every 48 hours in Canada a woman is killed, most often by a man. Because she is a woman,” appears over the body bag, before the film closes with a CTA: sign the petition at AuraFreedom.org to have femicide declared an emergency in Canada.
"The world will gender just about everything, until it actually counts," said the Forsman & Bodenfors creative team of Darby Clarke and Alexandra McGuirk Penedo in an email to The Message. "We decided to go with a misdirect because the traditional way of speaking about femicide and gender-based violence was not working. We needed people to pay attention, because the femicide emergency can no longer be ignored."
The static and display creative relies on a shot of the pink and red body bag on stark, blood red backgrounds with headlines like: “The only bag you need for the femicide emergency.”
What happens in an 'emergency'? "Declaring femicide an urgent emergency in Canada will hopefully see it being prioritized," Kokkoros told The Message. "It would allow us to formally recognize femicide as a distinct form of violence that differs from homicide within Canadian legislation and the Criminal Code.
"If we’re successful in doing so, Canada would send a clear message that male violence against women and girls will not be tolerated, and that the lives of women and girls hold inherent value to society."
And we quote: “We created the "...For Her" campaign to bring public awareness to the sobering realities of femicide in Canada and to demand action from our government. We're not waiting anymore and we're not asking nicely.”— Marissa Kokkoros, founder and executive director, Aura Freedom.
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