Throngs of enthusiastic men will don women’s shoes on Sept. 29 and literally walk a mile in support of the Walk A Mile In Her Shoes campaign to help put a stop to violence against women.
Toronto’s Dundas Square is the site of the third annual event that was created to raise funds and awareness for the White Ribbon Campaign, a male-led effort to end violence against women.
Espresso, the organization’s agency of record, had previously developed print-based ads, the brand’s logo, a launch video and a website, with Zoom Media donating space for PSA advertising.
In its first two years, Walk A Mile exceeded the organization’s expectations by raising roughly $210,000 annually. According to Espresso CEO Jacquelyn Cyr, this year’s marketing campaign has gone viral with a distinctly digital twist, featuring outreach on Twitter and other social media for a multiple-channel approach.
Cyr explained: “The first two publicity campaigns were extremely successful. We thought that since there has been so much response digitally for Walk A Mile and White Ribbon overall through their one-on-one outreach, we should create more content for them. It’s a way of raising awareness and participation levels and, ultimately, raising donation levels”. Organizers have set the fundraising target for the upcoming event at $250,000.
This year, Espresso went a different route, reflecting the realities of both a limited budget and an increasingly digital media environment.
“We realized that we hadn’t yet used a viral approach,” Cyr said. “For the current campaign, we’re hitting multiple bases through a variety of channels using a very grassroots, street-level activation approach”.
Two new pro-bono PSAs have been created to help the public get pumped for the cause. The videos, now available on YouTube, feature largely straight-laced men in stilettos and pumps taking to the streets in a tangible show of support. “Using video was a tactic to get the buzz going at the street level in order to increase the level of participation in the Walk A Mile program overall. Men walking around in women’s shoes in the financial district of Toronto tends to attract attention.”
Public relations firm Environics has taken on the PR mantle for the campaign for the third year running.
Walk A Mile’s future plans include staging an advertising agency challenge to see which team can raise the most money for the cause.
