Droga5 was just 2 years old in 2008, with nothing like the profile it has now, when it teamed up with Sarah Silverman for "The Great Schlep," encouraging Jews to visit their grandparents in Florida and get them to vote for Barack Obama.
"The Great Schlep" won millions of views along with a slew of ad awards. (Talking to Adweek earlier this year, Silverman called the reaction to it "a big beautiful surprise.") Now, she and the New York agency have reunited for another hilarious political campaign, the "Equal Payback Project," aimed at closing the wage gap between men and women.
The project, benefiting the National Women's Law Center, which advocates for equal pay, is essentially a giant fundraiser, with a ludicrously lofty goal of raising almost $30 trillion—a figure calculated by multiplying the 69 million working women by the amount ($435,049) each one stands to lose, on average, to the wage gap over the course of her career.
Silverman explains the project in the amusing video below. But then, realizing that goal is unlikely to be met, she embarks on an even more drastic plan to get the money she deserves.
Video is probably NSFW due to lots of fake male genitalia.
"It's insane that equal pay is still something we're fighting for in 2014," says Karen Short, creative director at Droga5. "More than 50 years have passed since the Equal Pay Act, and the typical woman is still making only 78 cents to a man's dollar. We want to breathe new life into an old issue still relevant to the modern working women. It's a wake-up call for us to take charge of our financial fates."
"Equal pay may not be a sexy issue, but it's an important one," says Casey Rand, Droga5 creative director. "And it is absurd. Young women need to know what's at stake. And we knew that to get them to engage, we'd need to play up that absurdity."
The video points to EqualPaybackProject.com, which goes live today and will collect donations through the end of the month. It's powered by Tilt, a crowdfunding platform, and was funded by The Ipsos Girls' Lounge.
The idea and original script for the video came from the creatives at Droga5; Silverman worked on the script, too, after signing up for the project.
"The wage gap is stubborn, it's persistent and it's outrageous," says NWLC co-president Marcia D. Greenberger. "We're thrilled that Sarah Silverman is bringing her prodigious talents and brand of irreverent humor to bear on a very serious issue for women and their families. We hope she opens hearts and minds—and a few pocketbooks—to provide the resources to close the wage gap once and for all."
See some infographics and posters from the campaign, along with credits, below. And check out our Q&A with Silverman from earlier this year on the joys and terrors of politically charged advertising.
CREDITS
Client: National Women's Law Center
Campaign: Equal Payback Project
Agency: Droga5
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Vice Chairman: Andrew Essex
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Creative Directors: Casey Rand, Karen Land Short
Art Director: Sean Park
Head of Integrated Production: Sally-Ann Dale
Senior Producer: Anders Hedberg
Broadcast Producer: Bill Berg
Executive Technology Director: David Justus
Senior Interactive Producer: Laura Bruskin
Interactive Developer: Phillip Pastore
Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Head of Communications Strategy: Colleen Leddy
Communications Strategist: William deLanoy
Head of Accounts, General Manager: Susie Nam
Account Director: Amanda Chandler
Account Manager: Belle Bonar
Associate Account Manager: Jonathan Weiss
Co-Writer/Comedian: Sarah Silverman
Production Company: JASH
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Director of Photography: Jonathan Hall
Executive Producers: Daniel Kellison, Doug DeLuca, Mickey Meyers
Producer: Nicholas Veneroso
Associate Producers: Chelsea Gonnering, Skyer Predergast
Editing, Postproduction: Droga5 Studios
Editor: Matt Badger
Crowdfunding campaign powered by: Tilt
Music: Jingle Punk
