One of the many executions in a new campaign seeking foster families in San Francisco.

San Francisco’s housing crisis impacts everyone in the city, including long-time residents who can no longer afford rents and young families forced to move away to buy homes. But one of the under-reported tragedies: It’s also having a devastating effect on foster children.

Right now there are hundreds of kids waiting to be placed into homes in the city. And without a steady stream of volunteers, those kids will be forced into homes far from the only city they’ve ever known.

So how does a government agency get fresh recruits? They team up with one of San Francisco’s top ad agencies, Division of Labor.

The creative brief set forth by the San Francisco Human Services Agency was simple: Create an attention-grabbing ad campaign that recruits 100 new foster families to join the cause.

The ask is huge. It’s not like getting people to try a new laundry detergent or switch to a low-fat peanut butter. Becoming a foster parent is a life-changing decision. To that end, we needed an emotional hook that would get people to pay attention.

Inspiration hit while someone on our creative team was walking through a parking lot. He saw a huge SUV taking up two compact spaces. Not surprisingly, his first thought was: “What a jerk.” But his next thought was “Unless that jerk happens to be a foster parent. In that case, they can park wherever the heck they want!”

That idea really rang true with everyone on the project. It resulted in an edgier, more humorous campaign that changed people’s perspective on fostering and got them to think about it in a new way.

There are over 40 different executions across billboards, bus shelters, digital banners and social media platforms and they’re all based on the horrible, but not-so-horrible things we all do that can be made up for by being a foster parent. Things like, you might be a serial re-gifter or you might only tip 10% or you might eat all the m&m’s out of the trail mix, but at least you’re a foster parent. The tagline across the campaign: Fostering. It makes up for a lot.

The San Francisco Chronicle did a piece on the campaign launch, along with the perspective of a family who has fostered multiple kids over the years, including a medically-fragile baby they’ve since adopted.

And while ad agencies love free press, in this case, we’re hoping the free press attracts new families, not new clients.

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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.

If you’ve ever gotten one of those “Aw Snap” screens from a website then you know how annoying it is when technology doesn’t work like it’s designed to. Or if you’ve ever tried to buy something online and you get to the end of the process and the shopping cart doesn’t work? I mean, not the end of the world, but it’s irritating none the less.

And things that are irritating to consumers are potentially devastating to companies. The business of digital operations management is massive because all companies rely on technology and when there’s something wrong with their network, they’re screwed.

Enter PagerDuty. A digital operations management company that works with Fortune 500 companies, startups, government agencies and even non-profits to ensure incidents are handled expeditiously. Developers can use PagerDuty a bunch of different ways but the main thing is that PagerDuty analyzes signals and data on digital networks of a company and can detect when potential issues might surface and then alerts the developer, or anyone else for that matter, to the incident so adjustments can be made before any problem ever reaches a user.

A simple example I use because it’s one my tiny advertising brain can process is; let’s say Division of Labor creates an amazing digital video that funnels a ton of traffic to our client’s website. And since our video is so good and funny and emotionally compelling, the increase in traffic threatens to overload our client’s website. (We are that good.)

But PagerDuty detects the increase in traffic, alerts the developer so she can increase server capacity and avoid any disruption. PagerDuty also learns over time and can implement network adjustments on behalf of the developer or predict future issues so the developer can prepare for them. Developers have even said they won’t work at a company unless they can have PagerDuty. Pretty cool company.

But not enough people know about them. So they asked Division of Labor to help with an awareness campaign to increase brand recognition and drive trial ahead of their big PagerDuty Summit19, held at the end of September in Union Square.

At its core, PagerDuty solves problems before they become problems. So we launched their first brand awareness and digital marketing campaign anchored with the line: Solutions Before Problems.

Division of Labor worked in close collaboration with the folks at PagerDuty along with our partners at MediaSmith. But we also inherited some beautiful brand design work from the folks at Collins. Collins created a palette and brand template for us to work with allowing us to focus on developing the messages and simplifying the communications; from digital and out of home to podcasts and a completely redesigned and rewritten website. The campaign launched in San Francisco and New York with executions in Times Square and Madison Square Garden.

We are now preparing for phase two, but check out PagerDuty if you’re a developer and see what you think. Thanks to all who made this campaign happen.

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How to get more foster parents in San Francisco

New Brand Awareness Marketing Campaign for PagerDuty