This Agency Reframed the Conversation About Police Defunding

The idea of defunding the police has always been less radical than it sounds. Understanding this, Brooklyn-based agency Huge found a way to distill the essence and the promise of the movement into three words: Defund to Refund. The agency brought the realities of the cost of police brutality, and the benefits of reinvesting in community support services, to life with a story-based platform providing real examples of situations where properly funded programs could have been utilized instead of police intervention that resulted in violence. Partnering with three Black artists to depict the scenarios, the immersive and informative platform combines data, design and storytelling to make its point. By weaving in statistics on the costs of overpolicing that disproportionately target communities of color, the experience manages to illustrate how investments in the areas of education, mental health and social services could have prevented police violence. Defund to Refund manages the considerable task of transforming budget considerations from a dry issue into a thought-provoking and visually arresting exercise, asking people to imagine a more just world created by alternatives to costly police intervention. Reframing the conversation The concept stemmed from a global open brief at Huge last summer around overpolicing and police brutality, which focused specifically on defunding the police. "When we looked at the research and the data, we saw it was the one solution to reducing police presence and scope, and therefore police violence," Huge group director of planning Asmirth Davis told Adweek. The agency was well aware of the challenges in convincing a broader audience of the benefits of defunding the police. The movement gained traction after the killing of George Floyd, but faced opposition from not only law enforcement evangelists and conservatives, but also moderates decrying the approach as too radical or divisive. "I knew there was a way to get the world to think differently," Davis said, and how the weaponized "defund the police" terminology could be framed differently. "In the brief there was an 'aha' moment for most people. Most people live and breathe in this world where they believe police are crime stoppers, but that's a fallacy; they respond to crime," Davis explained. "Once you break that down," she added, "you understand the reaction you might have to 'defund the police' because it shakes a fundamental belief you've had since you were a child." By pivoting the focus to alternative investments, Defund to Refund side-steps attempts to shut down conversations around police funding with fear-based or intellectually dishonest arguments. The agency then fulfilled the persuasive promise of the slogan by utilizing its strengths in design and storytelling. "We needed to get people to focus not on taking away but reinvesting in our communities in a meaningful way. We felt like we were solving for a big barrier that was in the way," she added. "Knowing human behavior and how it operates, we knew we could utilize storytelling and design to get people to think differently about an idea that was weaponized." Huge engagement director Fuming Cao and analytics lead Justin Anderson-Weber developed the concept that best addressed the brief in a way that was compatible with Huge's strengths. While it may seem strange for an analytics lead to play such a prominent role, the incorporation of data into each story is one of the initiative's key strengths, connecting audiences to the broader issues related to individual instances of police violence. "It was an unlock moment when we realized the right approach to interlock data with the story. We don't want people to think about police brutality in isolation," Cao said. "We want to thread it through from beginning to end." For example, the "Help or Harm?" story about a schizophrenic man killed by police contains breakouts on the prevalence of mental illness in the U.S., the lack of mental health resources for African Americans and the median salaries of two police officers. Such data complements the story to provide a compelling argument that the $200,000 in municipal resources would be better spent on mental health services. By focusing on the benefits of reallocating police funding in a succinct way and illustrating how budgetary reforms could prevent instances of violent police intervention, the effort connects individual stories to broader policy issues. Huge hopes to convince audiences of the benefits of more effective solutions to public safety and inform conversations around the issue, but understood it couldn't reach everyone and needed to target the effort to those who could be persuaded. "We know that there’s a segment of people we will never convince no matter what. We're not trying to convince those people," Weber said. "We're trying to convince people who do seem like allies but when they hear 'defund the police' get a bit uncomfortable." A call to action Each of the stories include calls to action directing readers to community initiatives, resources and services related to its focus and demonstrating a more effective alternative to police intervention. The site also includes a Take Action section that includes campaign social assets as well as educational resources. Huge hopes these connections help lead to action and views the degree to which its Defund to Refund phrasing is adopted more widely and inspires progress as one measure of success. The About Us section of the Defund to Refund page includes a call for organizations to act as collaborators. Weber also said that Huge plans to grow the initiative beyond the website. "We would love to find partners in specific communities and work with them to tell their stories and ... to build toward how individual communities can use Defund to Refund for their needs." Staying accountable The initiative arrives at a time when some fear that the promises agencies made last year to take meaningful action to address systemic racism will go unfulfilled. "We need to do this now. We see agencies are quieting down. All the agencies that posted black squares, claimed commitments to Black Lives Matter and DEI, we haven't seen anything from them. We have seen [some] hiring but everyone's forgetting about the [equity and inclusion]. You have a lot of people in the industry like myself that have been enduring for decades and doing it without acknowledgement or recognition," Davis said, adding that hiring alone "doesn’t change the culture, the space, or move us forward." Davis pointed out that Huge allowed the team the space, time and resources necessary to bring the concept to life, a meaningful investment that will hopefully inspire other agencies. "We feel really strongly about this. It's putting your own skin in the game. It doesn't take anything away from an agency or holding company to put a statement out or donate a fraction of their profits. But talent is an agency's greatest resource," Davis said. "This is creatives at Huge saying this is our stance. We're going to break through performative allyship," Cao added.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Exclusive: This Agency Reframed the Conversation About Defunding the Police

Huge's Defund to Refund project highlights real stories and gives the issue context

Erik Oster

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Erik Oster