Creative Director's Cut: Women's Aid uses implicit messaging to raise awareness of coercive control

A brilliant new campaign by Women’s Aid, (the UK charity working to end domestic abuse against women and children), Not Model’s Own, aims to raise awareness of a lesser recognised form of domestic abuse, coercive control.

Directly targeting women through print and digital billboard ads, the campaign features three models who look like they are in a fashion shoot, but with an important twist.

Instead of the typical credits you would expect to see for a fashion shoot, like who the clothing brand was, who the hair stylist was etc, they instead feature phrases like ‘top: by model’s partner’, ‘trainers: by model’s partner’, ‘alienation: by model’s partner’, ‘self-doubt: by model’s partner’.

It explicitly demonstrates the physical and the mental impact of coercive control, but also gives an implicit message to remind the victim that this is not their fault— Not Model’s Own.

The juxtaposition of the ads - at first glance looking like your typical glossy, picture perfect scenario but in reality revealing what happens as a result of coercive control - does a starkly effective job of reminding us to look further and think harder about this less well known form of domestic abuse.