How'd we get to be the Foster Care Ad Agency?

As a result of a shortage of foster homes, the city of San Francisco sometimes has to send foster youth to stay with families outside the city. It’s a tough situation. Keeping kids within the city and their communities is as important as keeping them close to the schools, friends and support networks they rely on every day.

To help recruit more people to become foster parents, we started working with the San Francisco Human Services Association back in 2019. Since then we’ve raised awareness of the problem, helped recruit more foster parents and helped keep foster kids in San Francisco.

Across the bridge in Marin County, the same thing is true: more kids need homes than homes are available. Because of our work with SFHSA, we started working with Marin Foster Care to recruit families here in Marin and to give these kids a place to live in their community.

This month, we launched new campaigns for both agencies.

In the city, for the first time ever, we launched a full TV and streaming campaign along with outdoor, social and digital. See the campaign here.

Across the bridge in Marin, we launched the second part of our TV campaign featuring local foster parents. While last year we featured foster kids from Marin and heard their stories. See the Marin Foster Care work here.

Please share this work with anyone you know who might, maybe consider taking in a foster child. Most of these kids just need temporary homes until their parents can get back on their feet. 

For Foster-SF, special thanks to the fabulous Producer Julie Costanzo, DP Lou Weinert, Editor Doug Brown, Colorist Ivan Miller and Audio Engineer Chris Forrest Account Lead Rebecca Reid, CD Faruk Sagcan and Art Director Luis Gonzalez.

For Marin Foster, a huge thank you to DP Petr Stepanek and to Editor Cristobal GONZALEZ who did the campaigns this year and last and to Account Lead Rebecca Reid and designer Ruby Noto.

Nice work everyone. There are so many great San Francisco ad agencies out there. Division of Labor is proud and honored to have been tapped to work on these worthy causes.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor;I added this lining submitted the CO in there whistling thank you people as a great work greatSan Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.

New Ad Campaign Helps San Francisco's Foster Kids Find Local Homes

In late February of 2020, we launched our first campaign for Foster SF and San Francisco’s Human Services Agency. The goal: Find foster families and foster homes for the city’s most vulnerable citizens.

 The campaign hit all the marks in terms of website traffic and inquiry calls. But it’s tough to reach your full potential when you launch an outdoor campaign during a pandemic-induced lockdown. “Much of the media buy was OOH, which doesn’t work so well when the city was asked to shelter in place,” explains Josh Denberg, Division of Labor Advertising’s chief creative officer.

Then came the crashing economy, riots, and record-setting wildfires, these external forces didn’t exactly help in our quest to find viable foster homes. And when there are no homes available in San Francisco, these already traumatized kids were forced to move out of the city for placement elsewhere. It’s a tragedy on top of tragedy because, in addition to being separated from their parents, they also get separated from friends, classmates, teachers, and a familiar community.  And, to that end, it’s Foster SF’s mission to do everything they can to prevent that from happening.

Last year’s messaging relied heavily on humor. But for this year’s campaign, the creative team agreed that a change of tone more in keeping with the state of the world was imperative. “We needed an approach that was both strategic and empathetic,” says Denberg.

DOL’s, creative director, Faruk Sagcan, quickly figured out how to do just that. His idea focused on what happens when Foster kids are forced out of The City. He proposed illustrations of San Francisco’s most iconic landmarks, but with a piece of the landmark removed. The message: “When Foster Kids are placed outside San Francisco, we lose a piece of The City.” Executions include the Golden Gate Bridge minus one tower, a gateless entrance to China Town, and the Painted Ladies sans one of its ladies.

 For media, we focused almost entirely on digital and social, plus a few pole banners strategically placed along main city arteries. Hopefully, we can get the caregiver families needed to get these kids back to San Francisco. After all, it’s been a tough year for everyone. But even tougher on foster kids.

We’re honored to work with the San Francisco Human Services Agency and have high hopes for this year’s campaign.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.