Building on the success of their collaboration in 2021, Versus again partnered with Ad Council and Facebook on a campaign that invited veterans to illustrate that Veterans may not often wear their hearts on their sleeves, but most* proudly wear them underneath, as tattoos. Hidden beneath their clothes as per the ‘no visible ink’ rule, these very personal symbols, names and phrases wordlessly connect the military and Veteran community. Every tattoo has a meaningful story and is a permanent reminder from which Veterans derive strength every day.
Versus Director and ECD Justin Barnes sat down to talk with each of our core Veterans, getting them to build on the power of ink as an unspoken conversation starter and tool to articulate challenges without having to say ‘it’. These conversations gave our Veterans an opportunity to share civilian-world struggles without shame and to remove barriers so that Veterans were comfortable reaching out for help.
This campaign consisted of over a dozen unique videos for all of Facebook’s outlets, including :30 and :15 Stories and Reels and :30 Instant experience videos.