Refuge: How making a number famous helped to save women's lives

Refuge, a domestic abuse charity, made the national domestic abuse helpline famous on International Women's Day in the UK.

Summary

This paper tells the story of how Refuge, with no media budget, made the National Domestic Abuse Helpline famous on International Women's Day.

We had one urgent objective to deliver on: getting as many women as possible to know a life-saving 11-digit number.

Using a fame driving creative and media approach, we created a Twitter-first idea, a Piccadilly Lights takeover and 10 second TV idents, which made the Helpline number unmissable for 24 hours.

The campaign generated over 50 million Twitter impressions by inventing a new media space for the brand, it reached 1.7 million women on TV and...

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