World Vision Canada is urging Canadians to take a stand against child slavery in the developing world with its new “No Child for Sale” campaign, targeted primarily at women aged 25 to 55.
With media and creative handled by KBS+P and Toronto-based Real Interactive, the campaign is anchored on experiential activations, which the charity hosted yesterday in Toronto and Vancouver. The activations saw World Vision set up displays in two stores, where child actors with price tags attached to them worked on tasks like sewing or washing clothes.
The event in Toronto was held at Pam Chorley’s Fashion Crimes, a store that sources its clothes locally. In Vancouver, it partnered with Crocodile Baby, a store specializing in ethically sourced baby goods whose owner was once a child labourer.
To support the “No Child for Sale” campaign, the charity has also invested in TV spots on female-targeted specialty channels like Slice and W, as well as on their digital properties. It’s also relying on OOH ads in major markets like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
The TV creative spoofs The Shopping Channel, with over-enthusiastic hosts describing the features of a young boy named Kewesi.
Additionally, the campaign urges Canadians to get involved by directing them to the No Child for Sale website and encouraging them to share through social media. World Vision has also launched an app, which can be used to help locate retailers with ethically sourced goods.
Caroline Riseboro, SVP, marketing and engagement, World Vision Canada, tells MiC that the campaign presented the charity with a means to reach out to Canadians and more effectively engage them by bringing the issue to life, as opposed to bombarding them with facts and figures.
She says the campaign was launched because World Vision sensed that Canadians want to help, but don’t necessarily know how or they lacked awareness about the issue of child slavery.
The campaign will run for six weeks, but will continue to live online at the website.
[iframe_youtube video=”bDLd5x-h-qw”]
Good work WVC!
Brilliant campaign! It’s good to see a charity like World Vision getting smart about marketing.
People are jaded about the whole, war, famine, drought, feed the children thing and tune it out because it makes them feel guilty yet nobody specific is to blame. It’s a passive shame.
This campaign targets an ill that is a direct result of wrongdoing, which engages people’s sense of outrage instead of inducing guilt.
We’ve got a built-in scapegoat. We want to “get” the traffickers and help the children.
Our sense of ourselves as righteous and good is engaged and affirmed, which is far more likely to spark action and donations.
… and the organizations general aims – “working toward a world where children’s hopes and dreams are not crushed by the weight of poverty” – are served in the process.
Like I said, brilliant!
Some people call me a ‘stick-in-the-mud’ and some say I’m a prophet. I see danger ahead. Although well intentioned, I see people going overboard with this child slavery thing. Don’t get me wrong …I detest using children for the sake of family income or corporate advantage. But I can see how it could escalate here in North America to people condemning families for trying to teach their children things like life skills ie: doing dishes, making their beds, working in a garden, cleaning up after themselves, learning household/hands-on responsibilities that could help them survive in the future. There is value in allowing kids to learn with mom or dad (aka mentoring). And once society is on the child slavery band wagon, it doesn’t take long before the well intentioned can get warped.
I say KUDOS to World Vision for this campaign. I hope it gets well explained that you are aiming at the misuse of children.
PS: while we’re on the topic… I detest charity organizations here in Canada misusing children in elementary schools to get them to raise funds on their behalf. To me, that is also child labour.