Beyond awareness: Mirabel campaign aims to end stigma by highlighting joy

A major all-media campaign aims to drive awareness of the 27-year-old charity, which supports children and young people who have been orphaned or abandoned as a result of parental drug use, as well as their kinship carers.

The theme of the campaign is “Childhood is precious”.

“The Mirabel mission is amazing, and we were, like: all of Australia needs to know the name of the Mirabel Foundation and what they do, who they are helping and why,” said Ant Melder, creative partner at Cocogun, the lead agency behind the creative component of the campaign. Driven by UnLtd, the entire campaign also involves agencies Photoplay and Ryvalmedia.

A north star for Mirabel’s work is “Every child deserves a childhood”, underpinning the practical, financial, educational, peer and emotional support services provided to the young people assisted and their kinship carers.

Melder said the agency had built on the idea that Mirabel’s focus is not the difficulty of the road these children travel, or the circumstances they seek to grow away from, but something else altogether.

“To be honest, our first instinct was to go for the heart strings with a tear-jerker, when you look at what these kids go through,” he said. “But the more we spoke to Mirabel, the more we realised they were about joy, and bringing and retaining joy in the lives of these young people.”

The campaign leant into this discovery, and the result is an uplifting, artistic and watchable TV commercial and campaign where young people emerge from sadness to experience a carnival of fun.

Taglines include “From longing to belonging”, “Before being great is being seen”, and “No-one left behind”, and the video is set to “Angie (I’ve Been Lost)”, by Fred Again, featuring the vocals of Angie McMahon.

Mirabel’s Nicole Patton said the foundation’s aim was to use the campaign to end the stigma Mirabel kids can feel because of the circumstances of their lives.

“Cocogun just really approached the concepts with such sensitivity and compassion,” she said. “They wanted to learn about our issues before doing anything, and then when they chose this direction, it was down to every last detail.”

This was vital because for all the joy Mirabel focuses on, its work deals with fragile people in extremely fraught situations, and so specific words and images needed to be crafted or avoided to ensure the messaging in the campaign remained positive and didn’t have a negative impact on the people Mirabel helps.

“This campaign is about children, parents and families not feeling judged,” Nicole said. “But the timing was right, the partners were right and we thought it was time to raise awareness and put these families on the map.”

Ultimately, the campaign will be aimed at attracting assistance in the form of donations, sponsorships, government grants , corporate support or volunteers, but for now, the foundation is happy to show Australia that despite everything life has thrown at them, Mirabel children can smile from ear to ear.