Brand Story We Love: Homeward Bound

A new campaign by DDB out of Toronto wants to take something familiar and turn it on its head, this time around single mothers living in poverty. It benefits the Homeward Bound program at Woodgreen and asks us to ask ourselves:

“What if we cared about them as much as we cared about celebrities?” And it uses the hashtag #changetheconversation

The Campaign:
The campaign includes faux celebrity magazine covers and even a faux tabloid celebrity show called Gossip Today that is so bang on, you’d swear the studio segments are real.

But instead of stalking the rich, it follows struggling women working 15 hour days and having to deny their kids new 2nd hand shoes for lack of money.

Why we love it:

• it’s a fresh spin on an unsexy problem that’s hard to engage the public and media around
• it asks us to challenge our own assumptions but in a non-threatening way
• it juxtaposes two diametrically opposed settings to illuminate how completely nonsensical they both are

Any other thoughts?

• we know how tough it is to get any meaningful attention for issues around poverty. We think it shows remarkable creativity and hope this does well for a remarkable organization and program.
• if we were to quibble with anything, it would be the hashtag. #changetheconversation is a fairly standard PR phrase and really could stand for any cause; still a great sentiment
• Not a criticism, we are curious as to why the campaign does not include the voices of the women
• We think this is a brave, smart and compelling brand storyline and great work by the agency.

Similar concept:
The campaign is reminiscent another campaign by different branch of DDB that sprang up when the insensitive hashtag #FirstWorldProblems started to trend on Twitter a couple of years ago. DDB with the charity Water is Life and advertising agency DDB decided to try and kill it.

They filmed Haitians reading some of the tweets, saying things like “I hate it when my leather seats aren’t heated.”

It’s a clever concept.
Juxtaposing two opposing realities within a singular context forces us to ask larger questions of ourselves about fairness and entitlement.

Can you help?
We hope this campaign does good things for Woodgreen. If you do too, please consider signing the petition or making a donation so that Woodgreen’s program Homeward Bound, which successfully transitions at risk single mothers into stable homes, gets the funding it needs.