5 Advocacy Campaigns That Hit You Right In The Feels
There are many different types of advocacy campaigns. Some leverage humor to connect heavy topics to audiences at large. Some kick you right in the feels and beg you to act. Either way you shake it–an advocacy campaign is meant to provoke and educate you.
Unlike selling products, when it comes to marketing services, causes, or issues, getting in front of your audience is a little trickier–especially if what you are pushing is hard for people to hold. Creating a campaign that strategically tells a story through compelling design and messaging is one way to connect with your audience at large. Fan Club Brands is your brand, design, and marketing shop that can help you tell your story. Let the advocacy campaign examples below show you a few ways this could be done.
1. A campaign to protect you from animals - and vice versa
Leica is here to remind you that one mile is close enough when it comes to interacting with mama natch’s horned and toothed beats. This brilliant campaign leverages storytelling and environmental advocacy to promote a product–their Ultravid binoculars.
This design is so thoughtfully done because it makes you feel like you’re up close to the action–the experience of using their binoculars–while still representing the need for distance through the use of the vertical barriers between humans and animals. It’s a great example of how to partner brand values, products, and consumer behavior all in one. It’s just one of Leica’s many great advocacy campaigns.
Year: 2007
Brand: Leica
Agency: Advico Young & Rubicam AG
Creative Directors: Urs Schrepfer & Daniel Comte
Copywriter: Florian Birkner
Art Director: Roland Scotoni
Photographers: Stephan Schacher, Steve Bloom, Ardea & NHPA
Art Buyer: Verena Rentsch
2. A campaign to save your life–on and off the pitch
During the FIFA Women's Cup Finale in 2023, Breast Cancer Now demonstrated a brilliant tactical move by combining a soccer pitch with the fifth leading cause of death in the world–breast cancer. The image is so simple, yet its meaning is so serious.
This is a great example of how to keep things light when creating campaigns around heavy subjects. Bad marketing campaigns trying to raise the same awareness could have shown a picture of a woman with cancer. There’s no problem with doing it, however, lots of people are experiencing compassion fatigue and you run the risk of losing their attention.
This image ties the cause to the event in a familiar and cheeky way. A timely reminder to check your hoo-has, synchronized perfectly with the Lionesses vs Spain match. #savethetatas
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 2023
Organization: Breast Cancer Now
Associate Marketing Director: Deanne Gardner
Head of Brand Marketing & Planning: Lauren S.
Senior Brand Marketing Officer: Jessica Mason
Brand Marketing Manager: Sophie Smart
Agency: BMB Agency
Chief Creative Officer: Matt Lever
Project Director: Sofi Goddard (Andersson)
Creatives: Jack Snell, Joe Lovett & Ted Smith
Designer: Mark Gould
Head of Design: Ted Smith
Senior Strategist: Amy Bowker
Business Director: Sam Hardy
Account Director: Rosie Morahan
Account Manager: Amber van de Sande
3. A campaign to remind you that any war is a war on children
This gut-wrenching campaign leverages the reflection of children's faces through the physical destruction and impact of a war-torn country.
This is a great example of how to leverage design to showcase pain in a way that grabs someone's attention rather than pushing them away. If this were an image of a hurt child, the explicit nature of that image could cause someone not to look. Here, they showcase rubble to signify the destruction of a child's future. It cuts deeper than physical trauma.
When creating advocacy campaigns that touch on hard topics, try to think about the alternate impacts of the issue. Which of those impacts or implications connect to the core of what it means to be human? What is something that everyone could be touched by or understand, regardless of who they are or which side they are on? Start there and use that as your inspiration.
Country: Chile
Year: 2023
Organization: UNICEF Chile
Agency: Havas Santiago
Creative General Director: Joaquin Bascuñan
Creative Director: Kenneth Foweraker Soulodre
Art Directors: Víctor Torres & Fabián Ovando
Copywriter: Ricky Börgel Parra
Creative Supervisors: Ricky Börgel Parra, Victor Torres & Fabo Ovando Aburto
Post Production Company: Semilla Studio
4. A campaign to remind you that the clock is ticking
One way to get a group of people worked up is to take something away. Humans hate losing things–even if it was something they didn’t use or need. This campaign from the WWF was a clever twist on the conversation of climate change.
With the rise of AI and everyone buried eyeballs deep in their phones, how can you continue to raise awareness on a tired topic? By reflecting their language and daily habits back at them.
We all know climate change is an issue – but is it today and at this moment? What if you got calendar reminders from Google predicting the extinction date of the animals we love? Would that get your attention, then? Probably.
“Not since the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago have we lost animals and plants at the same rate as right now. Together with leading experts, we are now setting a date for when some of the world’s most vulnerable species are in danger of extinction if we don’t act. The dates are collected in a digital calendar that everyone can subscribe to. Each year, you’ll be reminded of how long it is until species become extinct. Hopefully, the constant reminder means that we can postpone or cancel these dates together. Find it at extinctiondays.com”
Country: Denmark
Year: 2024
Organization: WWF
Communication Director: Tobias Emme Høgsberg
Strategic consultant: Rie Kromann
Corporate Partnership Manager: Henriette Nedergaard
Head of PR & Media: Mai-Britt Noe
Agency: &Co. / NoA
Creative Director: Claus Collstrup
Art Directors: Jonathan Slyngborg Fjord & Claus Collstrup
Copywriter: Sophie Hotchkiss
Graphic Designer: Morten Grundsøe
Interactive Producer: Palle Storm Aufeldt
Media Strategist: Mark Ellegaard & Morten Saxnaes
Account Director: Sarah Emilie Gandil
Account Manager: Christoffer Reimer Petri
Production Company: NoA Ignite
Animator Bold, NoA: Gustav Ditlev Sørensen
Designer: Neal Drasbeck
Project Manager: Niclas Haumann
UX: Thea Nielsen
Developer: Tomm Huth
Engagement Director: Kasper Kærsgaard
5. A campaign to remind you of the impact of a dog's love
If a picture is worth a million words–how many words is it worth if it’s missing something? This advocacy campaign reminds us of the importance of companionship.
It leverages negative space to represent the void and emptiness in someone’s life when you don’t have a dog by your side. The image next to it changes the whole context of the image, turning it from a sad story to a love story. It’s enough to make you run out of the house now and adopt.
When trying to tell a story, use negative space to help your audience see and feel what it is like to have and not have something. Loss is one thing we all understand.
“A dog makes your life happier. Adopt.”
Country: Brazil
Year: 2013
Brand: Pedigree
Advertising Agency: AlmapBBDO, São Paulo, Brazil
Chief Creative Officer: Marcello Serp
Executive Creative Director: Luiz Sanches
Creative Directors: Marcos Medeiros, Andre Kassu, Renato Simões, Bruno Prosperi
Copywriter: Ana Carolina Reis
Art Director: Marco Monteiro
Photographer: Elene Usdin
Art Buyers: Teresa Setti, Paula Feijo
Account Supervisors: Fernanda Antonelli, Ricardo Taunay, Italo Vetorazzo
Advertiser's Supervisor: Marina Sachs
Planners: Cintia Gonçalves, Fernanda Barone
There are so many things to consider when developing and designing a campaign that causes your audience to pause and pay attention. Use these advocacy campaigns to help you advocate for your cause. You have the power to evoke emotion and action – you just have to think of how to tell your story in a way that surprises the viewer.
