Don’t cover it up

Domestic violence is an increasing issue for young women, studies show that 50% of young women in the UK have experienced some form of domestic abuse but they are unlikely to talk about it, or report it.

For this viral campaign Refuge and BBH worked with popular beauty vlogger, Lauren Luke, to produce a special youtube episode to speak directly to her 450,000 followers.

In the video titled ‘How to Look Your Best the Morning After’ – which was uploaded as a normal tutorial on her channel – Lauren breezily talks viewers through beauty tips to hide her visible signs of domestic violence.


The naturalistic nature of the video (which some viewers at first believed to be genuine) hyper-targeted directly at Lauren’s viewers in this very intimate medium immediately sparked a conversation among her fans. The campaign then relied on those 40,000 to start the conversation themselves, spreading it though friends where it would make the most impact, which then spread to a wider audience. The video reaching one million views within 5 days (now standing at 1,433,589 views with over 5,000 comments) and received wide coverage in the national press.

It’s a disarming, brave and hugely effective campaign, a shining example of getting maximum impact on minimum budget and highly deserving of its APG Award (among many others).

See the case study below and donate to Refuge here.

Refuge were winners at The Marketing Society Awards for Excellence 2013, taking the title for Marketing on a Shoestring.

This article originally appeared on eatbigfish, find out more on their website.