Compassion Doesn’t Always Wear a Uniform

Damian Bonse, award-winning Executive Creative Director at m5 and a juror of the 2024 Applied Arts Advertising Awards. Damian leads the creative vision across the company's offices on the Atlantic East Coast, where he aims to transcend traditional advertising boundaries. Applied Arts was curious to find out which m5 ad campaign was his favourite from the past year. We understand why this was his favourite, and we think you will too, dear reader.

If, a year ago, you’d asked New Brunswickers who they picture when they hear the word hero, child protection social workers would have been nowhere on the list. They were seen as the bad guys, the “baby snatchers.” Any campaign to shift that perception would have to do the near impossible: reverse a long-held public misconception. Challenge accepted. In starting this campaign, m5 knew the idea would have to be bigger than just a TV spot. So, they proposed a bold social experiment to the New Brunswick Association of Social Workers (NBASW). This experiment would make these public misconceptions work in their favour to prove child protection social workers do more than people know. 

The setup of the social experiment was simple yet elegant. Put five frontline professionals on stage, play quotes from real children about times they were in danger, then ask New Brunswickers if they could match the child’s story to the person who saved them. Four of the five frontline workers were the picture of the classic hero in uniform: a firefighter, a police officer, a paramedic, and a surgeon. Rounding out the five was Annie, a real New Brunswick child protection social worker.

Ten random public participants listened to five quotes each, and the results surprised even m5. Not one single person in all 50 questions chose the social worker. “We were sure someone would wise up to the fact that the person not in uniform was the hero,” says Creative Director Jim Mackey. “But not one did, which really drove home how timely and important this campaign was.”

When the truth was revealed by Annie, that all the quotes were from stories she shared with m5 about children she had helped as a child protection social worker, the emotional reactions from participants spoke volumes.

That reaction carried over into the campaign when it went live. m5 used their TV and social media assets to engage viewers to see if they could guess who a child’s story was about, which led to high levels of engagement and clicks through to the full experiment on the website. And when the social experiment was posted organically, it was shared thousands of times with comments flooding in from all over the world thanking the NBASW for showing what child protection social workers really do.

“This campaign proves that the right insight executed as a smart, unexpected idea can create something magical.”

About m5

m5 is a marketing firm that believes real creativity is about going beyond the surface to help solve our clients’ big, tangly problems. As one of Canada’s largest independent agencies, we offer all the services you’d expect, plus a few more you might not. All served up in an unpretentious style befitting our East Coast roots. As part of the m5 group of companies, we handle everything from massive, multilayered national campaigns with hundreds of deliverables to local community events that are close to m5’ers’ hearts. For the past 40 years, we’ve been fuelled by curiosity that’s let us transform our clients’ most complex challenges into effective and creative solutions.

m5.ca

Advertising at its best m5!