A Toronto charity says they stand by a recent campaign that used a pink body bag to raise awareness about femicide, which some said was triggering and distasteful, while others argued was appropriate to spur action on a pressing issue. 

On Dec. 17, Toronto City Councillor Lily Cheng tweeted an image of herself holding the body bag in city council chambers alongside Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and three Aura Freedom International (AFI) staff, the charity behind the campaign. 

In more than 50 comments on the post — viewed more than two million times before being deleted — X users — including survivors of gender-based violence and their family members — expressed outrage at the image, calling the body bag an upsetting and ill-conceived choice. 

“As the daughter of a domestic abuse survivor, I have to say this is disgusting [and] so far off the mark,” said Marnie Hill on X in response to Cheng’s post. 

“The people in these situations don’t need to be told that they could end up in body bag. They wake up every day, wondering if that’s going to happen,” she added in an interview with Future of Good.

Cathy Crowe, a longtime Toronto street nurse who watched Cheng present the body bag in council as part of a speech on femicide, said the campaign prop was triggering to her as someone who has for decades worked with women who have experienced gender-based violence and died on the streets. 

The campaign also missed the mark politically, failing to link social policies around housing and poverty with femicide, she said. 

Others were upset by the campaign’s parallel video, in which a narrator details the process of designing the body bag — the selection of the fabrics, proportions and zipper placement in tones reminiscent of a fashion ad. 

The video “fetishized” femicide, and the choice of pink for the body bag “cheapened” the deadly serious subject of violence against women, said a survivor of intimate partner violence who asked for anonymity for fear of online harassment. 

AFI’s founder and executive director, Marissa Kokkoros, defended the campaign despite the pushback. 

“This campaign is intentionally hard-hitting because femicide is hard-hitting,” she said in an emailed statement. 

“As advocates who have been addressing male violence for years, we are tired of our world ignoring femicide, making excuses for it, sanitizing it, and explaining it away.” 

A woman or girl is murdered in Canada every 48 hours — usually by a man — according to a 2022 report by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. 

This type of violence is also on the rise. In 2022, femicides where men were accused of the crime increased by 27 per cent in Canada compared to 2019, according to the charity’s report. 

AFI’s campaign petition, now signed more than 1,500 times, calls on the federal government to declare femicide an emergency and to recognize the crime as distinct from homicide, which is now the case in 22 other nations, according to the charity. 

Kokkoros said AFI has also received requests to translate the campaign’s materials into different languages and messages of gratitude from gender-based violence advocates. 

Some have also celebrated the charity’s work on the campaign online. 

More than two dozen people posted positive comments in response to a Dec. 7 Instagram video featuring Kokkoros on CTV’s The Social talking about the body bag and femicide. 

“Thank you to Aura Freedom for your uncomfortable [and] very unglamorous work to put an end to femicide in Canada,” one said in a post. 

“In this work, speaking out often means that not everybody will be happy, but we continue to stand behind this bold and necessary initiative to recognize femicide and start to truly address it,” said Kokkoros.  

“Femicide itself is triggering…[but] we will not look the other way, and we cannot tread lightly. Women in our communities are dying, and their deaths have become invisible.”

Are ‘edgy’ campaigns necessary? 

In response to increased social media noise and a decline in donors, some charities and non-profits may increasingly turn to “edgy” campaigns like this to get action on their issue, said John Cameron, a Dalhousie University professor who studies charitable advocacy. 

“If it’s not edgy and engaging, people aren’t going to pay attention to it,” he said.

He added that charities are caught between a rock and a hard place because creating a campaign that gets people to take action and doesn’t offend anyone is challenging. 

“Finding that perfect balance of, basically — ethical edginess — is really, really hard,” he said. “In order to be edgy, you have to take the risk that you’re going to offend some people.” 

Not all agree. 

“You can break through the noise by sharing a strong and consistent message and tapping into relevant [political] moments,” said Kathryn LeBlanc, a social sector communications professional based in Ottawa, Ont.

The Foundation for Black Communities successfully advocated for the federal government to create a $200 million Black-led endowment without a “shock and awe” campaign, she noted as an example. 

Charities using edgy campaigns also risk harming relationships with their constituents and bruising their brands, LeBlanc added. 

“The idea that there’s no bad press is true if you’re Perez Hilton or some sort of other notorious celebrity, but it doesn’t stick in the non-profit and social impact context,” she said. 

“We are not just looking for clicks and placement in the New York Post or some sort of social magazine. We are looking to tangibly make a difference — tangibly support and shape communities.” 

Charities must carefully shape their narrative or risk offending and hurting people, she said. 

The IPV survivor who spoke with Future of Good shared this concern, believing the campaign was “dismissive of survivors” and the opposite of what she would have hoped for from a survivor-led organization. 

A trauma-informed campaign focused on a mass-market audience would not use shock value because of the risk of retraumatizing survivors, she said. 

Had the campaign been targeted at perpetrators in male jails or programs, it might have been appropriate, but this was not the case, she added. 

Kokkoros rejected the idea the campaign wasn’t trauma-informed. 

“[It] was more than 12 months in the making, and not one aspect of it was taken lightly. None of our initiatives are taken lightly or approached without the utmost care,” she said. 

In the design of the campaign, the charity consulted with survivors, gender-based violence advocates, frontline workers, and academics, including women of colour, marginalized women, and queer women, said Kokkoros. 

“Our team, agency partners and campaign production partners are diverse by every measure.” 

The role of pro-bono

As some non-profits face tighter budgets, they may opt to work with prominent advertising or public relations firms pro-bono on campaigns, increasing the risk of controversy, said Terra Loire Gillespie, a Toronto-based social sector digital marketing professional.

The chance to reach national or international audiences by working with a large firm pro-bono is attractive but comes with risks for charities, who may feel indebted and less able to voice concerns than if they were paying for services, they said. 

“With a larger ad agency, there’s a lot of saviourism going on, and you’re just supposed to be grateful for what you get,” Loire Gillespie added. 

Large agencies working pro-bono may also design more shocking campaigns with the hope of winning industry awards, said LeBlanc. 

Awards can boost a firm’s brand and help secure additional corporate work. 

Jay Wall, a design professor at George Brown College and principal creative director for social design firm Briteweb, said charities could get helpful work from design partners of all types but suggested they be cautious to consider the biases of the partners they work with. 

“Design and communication are not neutral. There’s always a bias embedded in the creative process, which is reflected in the resulting work.”

In creating the body bag and companion video, AFI partnered with international advertising agency Forsman & Bodenfors pro-bono, but Kokkoros denied the relationship put them at a disadvantage. 

“Your questions insinuate grassroots organizations like ours lack the sophistication or professionalism to manage a marketing campaign,” she said.   

“We had the most respectful and caring experience with Forsman & Bodenfors, who listened to us intently and centred our feedback at every opportunity.” 

Forsman & Bodenfors did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

Regardless of the campaign team, Wall recommends charities consider using the ten design justice guiding principles created by Design Justice Network, an international organization, as a guide.  

The principles include a commitment to center the voices of those directly impacted by the outcomes of the design process and to prioritize the design’s impact on the community over the designer’s intentions. 

For those considering pro-bono work, Wall suggested the Association of Registered Graphic Designers’ guide as a helpful resource. 

Taking risks out of necessity

Cameron said he is sympathetic to the challenges charities face in this arena. 

Many donors want charities to minimize the money they spend on advertising, pushing charities toward pro-bono relationships, which may bring extra risks, he said. 

Charities also need to prompt action on intractable issues, which drives the creation of campaigns that risk offending, he added. 

“Most charities are very risk averse, and they don’t take risks if they don’t have to.”

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