Children First Canada
Advocacy Campaign
A “code pink” is a term used to declare a pediatric emergency in a medical setting. Due to ongoing, serious concerns about the welfare of children during the pandemic, Children First Canada wished to run a campaign using this term, with the aim to pressure the federal government into acting via an emergency response.
“#codePINK” combined with a graphic depicting a pink medical cross on a hand was the starting point of our campaign concept. This simple idea worked on a couple of levels: the hand referenced CFC’s already familiar logo (which makes use of an illustrated child’s hand), and the pink medical cross gave the audience a visual representation of the campaign’s name and meaning.
After developing this idea, we devised a way for CFC to enlist the public’s help. Social media users were encouraged to take a photo of themselves with a pink cross drawn on their hand using a marker, lipstick, etc.
After one month, media impact stats were:
• 69 unique news articles and broadcast stories
• Including reprints in multiple outlets, 646 articles were published or broadcast; total of 74,366,269 unique views.
• 855,000 Twitter impressions
• 612,980 Facebook and Instagram impressions
• 300+ new followers on Instagram
Raising Canada
The Raising Canada 2021 report is a powerful data-driven resource that further emphasized the urgent need for government to take action. The research shared in the report revealed that the top 10 threats to childhood—which predate COVID-19—had been exacerbated by the pandemic. The design of the 2021 report touches on the impacts on children of varying socio-economic statuses, racial and sexual identities, physical disabilities, and more.
The Raising Canada campaign was intentionally connected with the Code Pink campaign. The visual connection is evident in the report and the shown infographics, which made use of data acquired by research partners. At the time of publication, Code Pink was still in effect because the government did not yet take the action requested.
