Rede de Justicia wanted to bring attention to the unfairness of the Brazilian justice system. It created an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience, allowing users to see the poor conditions of Brazilian jails up close. Users also heard firsthand accounts from people who were imprisoned for months without being tried in court. The activation was set up in malls where people were prompted to sign a petition to help the cause.
Objective and Context:
Brazilian jails face a big problem: mass incarceration. In a space meant for three prisoners, there are four times more people. The great majority of these people don’t receive a trial beforehand, mostly due to some kind of prejudice. Rede de Justicia launched a campaign to inspire people to take injustice personally and spark change. By signing an online petition, they’d help to improve the Brazilian justice system while ensuring suspects would never be tried by prejudice again.
Creative Strategy:
Rede de Justicia went inside the Brazilian justice system to look at the causes and consequences of crowded cells and the reasons why people go to jail without being tried. The company targeted people over 18 years old from all over Brazil who were open to listening about human rights. Its campaign placed viewers in a first-person experience, allowing them to see the injustice of the Brazilian prison system up close. Rede de Justicia’s activation contained a VR experience, an exposition of prints with educational stories of real prisoners, and a digital platform where people could sign online petitions.
Overall Campaign Execution:
Using VR technology, Rede de Justicia placed people inside a crowded prison cell in a 360-degree experience. People were hosted by an actual prisoner who spoke about how he was imprisoned for eight months without being tried in court. He also walked through the inhuman conditions of a crowded cell. After taking the VR gear off, people were confronted face to face by the prisoner, who encouraged them to prevent injustice by signing a petition.
It took Rede de Justicia eight months to develop its idea. The activation was located at malls, where afterward, people were redirected to a digital platform where they could sign a petition to help the cause. The “Visceral Reality” campaign collected signatures from people all over the country.
Rede de Justicia leveraged influencers to spread awareness of its campaign. With only one activation and one week of the campaign, the company collected more than 10,000 signatures. After the initial run, the company launched the activation in eight other large cities around the world with the goal of obtaining 110,000 signatures.
