A1 ATLANTA · MARCH 2016 · PRO BONO
The governor vetoed it. The print shop didn't exist.
For one week, 4A Graphics of Georgia sold Georgians the discrimination signage HB757 would make legal. Then it told them what they'd been shopping for.
The stakes
On 16 March 2016, the Georgia legislature passed HB757. The bill made it legal to refuse service to another human being on religious grounds. In plain terms: a license to turn away gay and lesbian customers, single mothers, racial minorities, and the wrong kind of believer.
It sat on Governor Nathan Deal’s desk. He was expected to sign it.
The people who stood to lose were not an abstraction and they were not a target demographic. They were the kids at Lost-n-Found Youth, an Atlanta nonprofit that houses homeless LGBT teenagers. Most of those kids are homeless in the first place because somebody already decided they had the right to refuse them.
The move
We started a print shop.
4A Graphics of Georgia was a sign company with a website, a catalog, and a sales pitch: with HB757 about to become law, business owners were going to need signage. So here it was. Ready to order. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO, and then the list. Spelled out. Priced. In stock.
For a week Georgia got to look at its own near future hanging in a shop window. Then we dropped the mask and revealed the real call to action.
Nobody had to be argued with. They just had to be shown the merchandise.
The proof
We don’t discriminate. We just sell high-quality discrimination signs to people who do.
The receipts
Covered by NBC · CBS · AdAge · Creativity · The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
And the receipt that does the actual work. Someone else explaining the trick, in print, while the bill was still sitting on the desk:
“My thoughts were, I’m disgusted this bill is even on the table for Governor Deal to sign,” said Brandon George, an Atlanta-based marketing and tech guy for DigitasLBi who, with co-workers, started a satirical website (4agraphicsofgeorgia.com). The site displays 38 — for the number of senators who passed the original bill — fake anti-gay signs. […] “These signs aren’t real,” George said, “but the consequences for Georgia will be.”
— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 19 March 2016
And the governor’s own words, twelve days later, announcing the veto:
“This is about the character of our state and the character of its people. Georgia is a welcoming state filled with warm, friendly and loving people.” And, of the pressure campaign that had filled his inbox: “I don’t respond very well to insults or threats.”
— Governor Nathan Deal, veto remarks, 28 March 2016
By the campaign’s own award filing: 52,000 visits on day one, 1.7 million social shares and views, traffic from 55 countries, and 8,000 click-throughs to email the governor directly.
The hardware
Clio: Silver, Integrated Campaign (Public Service) · Bronze, Poster (Public Service)
One Show: Bronze, Direct Marketing · Merit ×3 (PR, Interactive, Social Media)
Webby: Best Cause Related Campaign, Advertising Media & PR
Shorty: Winner + Audience Honor, Social Activism · Silver + Audience Honor, Social Good Campaign · Gold, LGBTQ Community Engagement · Audience Honor, Real-Time Response
London International: Bronze, Public Service / Social Welfare
IAB MIXX: Silver, Public Service
OMMA: Causes / Charity / Non-Profit Website
Atlanta ADDYs: Gold ×8, Silver ×2
Atlanta Business Journal MAX Awards: Grand Winner
The credit
Pro bono, out of Digitas Atlanta, with Lost-n-Found Youth. Internally the campaign was called Future of Hate. Seven people in one room said yes in a week. The full credits live in the award entries, where the industry keeps them.