The hand signal alerting people to domestic violence that saved a 16-year-old girl in Kentucky was created by Canadian agency Juniper Park\TBWA.
The “signal for help,” and a video showing how to use it, was made for the Canadian Women’s Funding Network and Canadian Women’s Foundation. It quickly blew up on TikTok, leading the campaign to circulate throughout the U.S.
The teenage girl was reported missing on Nov. 2, according to the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky. Two days later, a motorist saw her in a vehicle making the hand gesture—a clenched hand with fingers trapping the thumb in the palm—alerting the driver to call 911.
“Someone on the highway saw it,” Graham Lang, chief creative officer of Juniper Park/TBWA, said of the hand signal, which he said has been seen “millions and millions of times” on TikTok. “That explains the way that this kind of idea has traveled from an idea invented in lockdown, to be used over video devices, to something that can be used from a car to signal to someone on the highway. That’s the power of it and it has been mind-blowing.”
These are the kinds of stories that the agency was hoping for when it created the hand signal in April of last year. Since then it has been shared in over 40 countries in more than 20 languages. Over 200 organizations worldwide have adopted the signal, with over 400 media outlets sharing it. Since the initial launch of the campaign, it has garnered over 1 billion impressions, with a total of $7 million in earned media.
The symbol has been shared by authors and celebrities alike. Both Vogue and “The Howard Stern Show” covered it, while celebrities like Billie Eilish, Hailey Bieber and Margaret Atwood have shared it.
According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, 1 in 3 people in Canada know about the Signal For Help or have seen it being used.
It's "incredible that it's very, very well recognized," Lang said.
The agency didn’t brand the signal because it wanted people to “use it for themselves,” Lang said. By not branding it, he added, many women’s shelters and organizations have been able to use it as their own, further helping those in need.
“It was used a lot to help victims in lockdown, but as countries started to open up, it was being used in real life,” Lang said. “So, at restaurants, bus stops, anywhere in public spaces, we were getting reports that the signal was being used.”
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Juniper Park plans to expand the campaign in the coming months. The second phase, which will also be under the auspices of WFN, will be aimed at educating people on how to respond to the hand signal, in a way that won't put others in danger.
It will launch exclusively in Canada, but with the intent that it will seep into the U.S., too.
“Hopefully again, the world picks up on it,” Lang said.
