Here at Funny Women, we support female comedy as a means of self-expression and a way of making yourself heard. Sadly, domestic abuse is a way of silencing the voices of its victims; 65% of women who experience domestic violence keep it hidden. It’s clear that this statistic has to change – but how do you reach an audience with a subject that they don’t want to talk about? And how can you address such a widespread issue when you don’t have a huge budget to play with?
Followers of the 2013 Funny Women Awards will know that we’re partnering with charity Refuge this year, with a pound from every entry fee and all proceeds from our final in September benefiting the charity, along with fundraising at every gig. We’re huge fans of Refuge – as one of the longest-running domestic violence charities, they support women at every level, whether that’s practically supporting victims of abuse or campaigning for governmental change. Their work is so widespread and so beneficial to so many, so we’re delighted to see that they’ve been listed amongst the five nominees for Brand Republic's Big Idea Award, as part of their Future 5 Awards, which aims to reward a campaign for an original and creative idea.
Refuge teamed up with Lauren Luke, whose Youtube makeup tutorials have brought her worldwide recognition. Although produced in the same way as her normal films, this particular video had one shocking difference. Lauren’s tutorial saw her to pretend to make herself up to cover facial bruises. The final screen gave the message ‘Don’t Cover It Up’ along with Refuge’s details.
Engagement with the campaign was incredibly successful. Not only did the video receive 1.2m views and 4.4m comments, but 34,550 people visited Refuge’s website, tweets to @RefugeCharity increased by 350%, and – perhaps most importantly of all – 6,000 people contacted the charity to ask for help. Even more impressively, the budget for the film was zero.
Although Refuge’s nomination will hopefully help the campaign to reach out even further, winning the award depends on your votes. You can visit Brand Republic’s award page HERE to read about all of the fantastic campaigns, and to watch Lauren’s video, along with clicking to help support Don’t Cover It Up’s message for the Award itself.
