Grey New York, which recently recruited the one-name wonder Seal to remind us that people often get lucky when their teams win at football, released a far more somber campaign with a background assist from the NFL today.
In late 2014, Y&R debuted “NO MORE,” which featured a bunch of NFL players speaking out against domestic violence. AOR Grey made the subsequent spot “Listen,” the NO MORE organization’s first Super Bowl ad.
This year it’s Grey’s turn again, and the resulting work resembles many of the text-message-based PSAs we’ve seen in recent years before taking a dark turn.
As the release tells us, NO MORE surveys found that 64% of Americans think the very act of starting a conversation about domestic violence would make it easier for them to help friends and family members suffering from this all-too-often unreported problem.
The work aspires to be the spark that gets such conversations going. “Listen” was the most-viewed PSA of its kind to date, and it led to “significant” but unspecified increases in calls to related hotlines.
Marketing company mGage is also donating its services to send “action-oriented messages” via text to viewers who follow the instructions at the end of this ad.
The NFL obviously tolerated violent and illegal behavior among some of its biggest stars for decades, and it does not directly collaborate with NO MORE. Still, the league did donate a small portion of its extremely valuable airtime during the game to this campaign. Any effort is better than none.
Credits
Client: NO MORE
Spot Title: Text Talk
Agency: Grey NY
Chief Creative Officer: Andreas Dahlqvist
Executive Creative Directors: Leo Savage and Jeff Stamp
Group Creative Director: Joe Mongognia
Creative Director: Evan Benedetto
Production Company: Brand New School
Executive Creative Director: Jonathan Notaro
Managing Partner: Devin Brook
Art Director: Jeffrey Welk
Designer: Angela Bac
Lead 2D Animator: Jim Forster
Head of Production: Julie Shevach
Producer: Johnna MacArthur
Audio House: One Thousand Birds
Sound Design: Andrew Tracy, Calvin Pia
Mix: Andrew Tracy