A07. Charities, Public Health & Safety, Public Awareness Messages
Entrant
McCANN PARIS, FRANCE
Idea Creation
McCANN PARIS, FRANCE
PR
McCANN PARIS, FRANCE
Production
MEDIALAB TECHNOLOGY Paris, FRANCE
Additional Company
MRM WORLDWIDE Clichy, FRANCE
Additional Company 2
CAPITAINE PLOUF Paris, FRANCE
Credits
Name
Company
Position
Riccardo Fregoso
McCANN Paris
Executive Creative Director
Julien Chiapolini
McCANN Paris
Executive Creative Director
Christophe Rambaux
McCANN Paris
Art Director
Gilles Ollier
McCANN Paris
Copywritter
Bruno Tallent
McCANN Paris
CEO McCANN France
Fiona Ferrier-Weil
McCANN Paris
International Account Manager
Coline Déchelette
McCANN Paris
Project Manager
Selim Boukhanef
McCANN Paris
Digital Account Director
Grégoire Talbot
McCANN Paris
Digital Project Manager
Véronique Leblanc
McCANN Paris
Art Buyer
Delphine Devaux
McCANN Paris
Art buyer
Isabelle Créchet
McCANN Paris
Producer
Sarah Woodcock
McCANN Paris
Producer
Caroline de Genis
McCANN Paris
Post-producer
Dragan Kontic
MRM//McCANN
Chief Technology Officer
Vianney de Villiers
MRM//McCANN
Responsable d'Exploitation
Clément Hardouïn
MRM//McCANN
Technical Project Manager
Pierre-Yves Chassaigne
MRM//McCANN
Front end developer
Agnieszka Kozbial
Medialab Technology
Managing director
Mickaël Vo Y Phong
Medialab Technology
Editor
Nicolas Gras
Medialab Technology
Editor
Fasutine Boussicot
Medialab Technology
Production Manager
Tom Buisseret
Zeyneprepresents
Photographer
Pauline Darley
La Crime
Photographer
Maniacha
B agency
Make-up
Olivier Duperrin
Olivier Duperrin
Casting Director
Sess
mademoisellemu
Make-up
Capitaine Plouf
Capitaine Plouf
Sound Producer
The Campaign
We created a fake escort website, girlsofparadise.sex, on which the girls are already dead, but the clients don't know it yet. Each story is a reconstruction of a real case. When the potential client called or started to chat with one of them he thought was a real prostitute, he was tricked into hearing her real, tragic story.
Execution
We asked 10 actresses to embody 10 characters based on the tragic stories of real-life prostitutes, victims of the system. We created girlsofparadise.sex, a website with the look and feel of a real escort website, bought the domain name, and published a few client posts on dedicated forums to attract potential clients to our site. In parrallel, we set up a call center to answer incoming phone calls and respond to chat and text messages. The call center was open for a full week. Today the website is still online, a robot answers live chat requests informing clients what happens behind the scenes when they pay for sex.
We created a fake escort website, girlsofparadise.sex, on which the girls are already dead, but the clients don't know it yet. A call center was opened. We received more than 600 phone calls and thousands of texts and chat conversations over the course of a single week. We created 3 radio spots out of these conversations recordings. The radio messages aired at a relevant time, one during which the French Parliament was debating over a bill that would penalize clients of prostitution. To amplify the debate and go beyond our borders we launched a PR campaign with a video case we made from our website. It was hugely successful catching the attention of more than 200 journalists around the world (from more than 31 countries) with 57,8 million organic impressions. Among the presse we note: Le Figaro, The New York Times, El Mundo, Corriere Della Sera, radio shows ieg NPR.
The Situation
Clients do not feel they are directly responsible for the violence the prostitutes often endure. Our campaign’s goal was to switch the perspective and make clients realize the role they play in prostitutes suffering. Our campaign provoked such a significant debate in the French political scene and allowed for a greater impact on the public opinion regarding the role the client plays in the system and thus participating in the creation an environment preferable to the passing of the law on April 6th 2016 (the penalization of clients of prostitution law).
The Strategy
The association's main objective is to prevent young generations from entering the prostitution system. To do so, we decided to show that clients are actually accomplices of the system: when they pay for sex, they actually promote the violence that prostitutes suffer from everyday. For us, the more powerful way to demonstrate this was to use true stories of prostitutes who were murdered or injured by a client or their pimp.