Aussie creative duo launch powerful #dontacceptrape campaign.
Harvard Crimson has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the scary statistics that one in five women and one in 16 men will be sexually assaulted at college.
The statistics inspired Melbourne creative duo Laura Petruccelli and Rohan Cooke of Goodby Silverstein & Partners and production company Prettybird to create the “Unacceptable Acceptance Letters” campaign, timed around the month of April, which is Sexual Assault Month and also the time when acceptance letters go out to incoming freshmen.
The campaign includes stories of sexual-violence survivors in the form of “acceptance letters” detailing the truth of the event as if it were coming from the college itself. These letters represent students’ hard work finally paying off and all their dreams finally coming true.
Online films will capture the moment when college students open their acceptance letters. Leaning into the popular phenomenon of today’s teens posting acceptance videos on social media, GS&P and directors Ben and Alex Brewer re-created the viral sensation of college-acceptance-letter videos but with a very dark twist to stress the severity of this epidemic.
As the excited new student begins to read their letter aloud, woven into the copy are the truths behind each of the colleges that have been exposed. The spots were shot on iPhones to make them as authentic as possible.
Print ads will run in The Crimson and USA Today, along with online films that tap into the trend of teens posting acceptance videos on social media.
