In an increasingly crowded Christmas fundraising landscape, Stockholm City Mission faced the challenge of distinguishing itself while addressing intergenerational poverty. Most campaigns focused on short-term relief, reducing complex social issues to emotionally charged but simplistic messages. Stockholm City Mission needed a method to inspire long-term engagement and communicate the nuanced, systemic nature of social vulnerability—without losing audience attention or donor support.

TBWA\Stockholm created a single, emotionally raw and cinematic film—”Break the Loop”—that trusted the audience’s capacity for complexity. The film deviated from quick-fix narratives by depicting long-term consequences and showing how one intervention can alter the future. This storytelling-first strategy challenged norms in the charity sector, proving that honesty and depth could captivate, move, and mobilize viewers more powerfully than oversimplified appeals.