Consent is one of those important and yet little discussed topics. When the Department of Justice came to us with a brief for a national awareness campaign, we knew we had to do something special.

Rooted in research, this campaign is the culmination of a project that began in 2020 with Department of Justice providing funding and partnering with the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre to support their groundbreaking research on sexual consent in an Irish context.

“Overall, there is an opportunity to promote the use of consent in sexual relationships as a way to focus on equality and respect in how we as a society relate to and engage with each other.” Antoinette Doran,  Department of Justice

With the aim of changing attitudes around consent and making the topic more approachable and relevant for all members of the public, we created our “Let’s have the consent conversation” campaign. We wanted to develop a positive understanding of consent, that everyone can benefit from.

“The reality that consent is respectful, empowering, and positive, really helped us define the tone for this advertising. We want to help people understand that consent is not a black and white issue, it is contextual and continual.” Ken Ivory, Javelin

The central piece of the campaign is a TVC that shows how consent conversations can, and should, be a natural topic of conversation in the most ordinary and everyday contexts. We developed a distinct visual identity with “consent quotation mark heads” for all the characters, which allowed for broad societal representation.

Beginning in November, the campaign kicked off with TV, local and national radio, digital audio, video on demand, digital OOH and social media. It also included a major OOH and ambient campaign designed to reach people in places where they are conversing like coffee shops, pubs and public transport.

We’re very proud to have created this important work that promises to make a real difference to people’s lives. We’re opening up the conversation, now let’s keep talking.