Tusko Wins Pitch to Work on American Prison Campaign!
Tusko Wins Pitch for American Prison Campaign
Saying the prison system in the United States of America has its challenges may be the biggest understatement you’ve heard this year. Maybe beaten by when people described COVID-19 as some virus a few people had, in early 2020.
Challenging the status quo with hard-hitting campaigns is in Tusko’s DNA. That’s why we are thrilled to work on the #SecondChances Campaign with our clients in the USA. This digital campaign shines a light on the injustice in the prison system in the state of Pennsylvania.
Below is a clip from the campaign - Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman asking the question; when does Justice become vengeance?
The context!
Commentators are awash with criticisms of the rise of the so-called prison industrial complex, disproportionate incarceration of minority groups, indeterminate holding times in country jails and life sentences given out like leaflets by a salesman who wants to go home early. Whichever side of the fence you are on (hard on crime or smart on crime), the problems exist and are real. For the land of the free, it’s really easy to go to jail in the US. The United States has the highest prison and jail population and the highest incarceration rate in the world.
All that said, we love working in the US and with the Americans. We think it’s an amazing country and has a lot to offer. That’s why we were over the moon to win a pitch (fighting off agencies in New York and Philadelphia) to work with Let’s Get Free and the Women’s Lifer’s Resume Project on the #SecondChances Campaign.
What we are doing to help…
The #SecondChances Campaign focuses on Life Without Parole (LWOP) sentence within the American prison system in state of Pennsylvania . We devised a strategy for a digital campaign, created three mini documentaries and a wealth of campaign assets (photographs and video snippets) that we are now managing across multiple platforms and channels. With all this content going out to people we wanted to drive traffic toward specific places. We branded the campaign, created a landing page for it, worked our magic with SEO (including on-site and off-site work) and produced an engaging content package optimised for social platforms and our client’s digital channels.
#SecondChances Campaign on web and mobile.
Already having an impact!
The campaign went live in July and will run until the end of September 2020. We can already see from the impact data that the campaign is increasing engagement, increasing web traffic to pages we have chosen and has helped galvanise the community online. Additional benefits include finding out more about our clients audience including age, location and preferences which can be utilised in upcoming campaigns.
The content offers unique access to maximum security prison SCI Muncy and SCI Cambridge Springs, in Pennsylvania, USA.
On average Pennsylvania spends $42,727 a year per person. The women featured in the films have served three, four or five decades in prison. Experts agree they represent no threat. yet they are left without hope of seeing home again – they are just “dying out loud”. This project is the second time the team at Tusko have visited the USA exploring the American prison system. Our first trip to the USA we made the award-winning documentary Dying Out Loud, which has had over 4 million viewers.
Below is another clip from the campaign. Sarita Miller - an incarcerated women serving Life Without Parole.
Pre-launch of the #SecondChances Campaign we engaged in selective audience testing to determine which content caught people’s attention and why. We then worked through our impact strategy to establish goals for the campaign and how we’d evaluate these. The goals include to ensure the content is widely seen, impact people’s behaviour by turning eyeballs into action, bring communities together to discuss the themes of the campaign and to challenge the legal systems and structures that perpetuate the problems (see the films to find out more about these problems).
The campaign led to a live event with a Q&A session with one of the films main protagonists Naomi Blount (a recently commuted lifer) and Secretary Brandon Flood, the secretary for the Board of Pardons. A response to a question directed at Brandon Flood, showed the pressure that is mounting on the Board of Pardons and how the campaign can affect change.
Question:
What responsibilities or leadership can someone in your position take toward reforming the process?
Answer:
For the first time, I testified to the legislature that the BOP needs more funding to hire more staff. We need to depoliticise the board. Hold elected officials accountable.
Secretary Board of Pardons, Brandon Flood. Credit: The Philadelphia Inquirer.
A somewhat controversial and painful past has plighted the Board of Pardon’s efforts for reform. For more on that you could read this article, which discusses it in more detail.
Want to get involved with the campaign?
There are a number of ways people can get involved and ‘take action’. These include; donating to the cause, signing up to the mailing list, signing petitions and organising a screening of the films.
If you are interested in finding out more about the campaign please go to the campaign page and have a look here.
Watch this space for more on this campaign.
Before you go!
Finally, during COVID-19, Tusko has been speaking to many organisations in the third sector facing challenges in telling their story and fundraising. Our creative agency has designed a number of service packages that aim to get charities online and engaging with their donors and service users. These services include web design and low-cost landing pages, COVID-19 content packages and ethical marketing campaigns. These have been created to keep the charities visible and active at a low cost during the pandemic. Click here to find out more.