In France, home insurance is mandatory by law. Every household must have it. AXA, the country’s leading insurer, holds approximately 2.5 million home insurance contracts. In April 2025, Publicis Conseil Paris identified three words that could turn that legal infrastructure into a lifeline: “and domestic violence.”
The Problem
France’s domestic violence crisis is not small. The number of victims reported to police stations doubled between 2016 and 2023, rising from over 124,000 to more than 270,000. The Women’s Foundation estimates the actual number of victims is closer to one million each year. The reported figures capture only those who have gone to the police. Most do not.
Among those who do seek help, 77% of calls to 3919, France’s national domestic violence helpline, cite the urgent need for alternative housing as their primary concern. The barrier keeping women in abusive households is not always fear alone. It is, frequently, the absence of anywhere to go. Women isolated from family and friends, placed under financial control by an abusive partner, and without access to independent resources, face a housing crisis the moment they consider leaving. That crisis is where they stop.
AXA and Publicis Conseil looked at this and identified a structural opportunity sitting inside the product the insurer already sold. Home insurance in France includes emergency relocation clauses for disasters: fire, flood, gas leak. The operational system for moving a family out of a dangerous home within 24 hours, into equivalent accommodation, already existed. It had been built for different emergencies. Those same three words, “and domestic violence,” activated it for this one.
The Three Words
Adding “and domestic violence” to AXA’s standard emergency relocation clause did not create a new product or a new cost to the customer. It reclassified an existing risk category to include a form of danger that home insurance had never previously recognised. A woman on an AXA policy, whether the contract is in her name or her partner’s, can now call a dedicated 24/7 emergency line, confirm that she is experiencing domestic violence without needing to provide proof, and be relocated to safe, anonymous accommodation within hours. Legal guidance, psychological care from professionals trained in domestic violence cases, and financial support follow through AXA France’s legal subsidiary Juridica and its network of 50 trained lawyers.
The change applies retroactively to all 2.5 million existing AXA home insurance contracts in France.
Marco Venturelli, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Publicis Conseil, described the complexity concealed by the campaign’s simplicity: “It sounds simple, but it meant rewriting the fundamentals of home insurance. One of the most complex aspects was ensuring that help could be offered even if the woman’s name isn’t on the insurance contract, and without requiring any proof of abuse.”
The work had been developed collaboratively with 80 NGOs across France, built around the concept of the “critical intervention window,” the period when a victim seeks help and danger often peaks simultaneously, and when acting within hours rather than days is the difference between safety and an escalation of violence.
The Communication Campaign
The policy change launched in April 2025, supported by a national communication campaign across television, outdoor, press, digital, and social media. A TV commercial ran for three weeks. A 2-minute educational video was produced for victims and their families. A short documentary directed by Marjory Dejardin and written by Sarah Barukh followed the entire victim support process from the moment of first contact, giving the campaign an evidential layer that extended beyond emotional storytelling into operational transparency.
The campaign’s visual world built on AXA and Publicis Conseil’s existing “Being a Woman Shouldn’t Be a Risk” platform, launched in 2023 to address the disproportionate risks women face across health, finance, work, and domestic contexts.
The Recognition
Three Words was first introduced in beta at Cannes Lions 2024, where it won Gold in Innovation. That early recognition gave AXA the confidence to implement the change fully across its policies. At Cannes Lions 2025, following the full launch, the campaign won Grand Prix in Direct, Grand Prix in Creative Business Transformation, a Glass Lion for Change, and the Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix, the festival’s single most prestigious award. It was the first time a French agency had ever won the Titanium Grand Prix. AXA was named Creative Brand of the Year at Cannes Lions 2025 with 13 Lions in total from just two campaigns.
Titanium Jury President Judy John, Global Chief Creative Officer at Edelman, delivered the citation with unanimity: “Three Words can change the world. This year’s Titanium Grand Prix didn’t just change insurance policies, it helped women literally escape domestic violence. These three simple words in a contract changed their lives, their outcomes, and an industry. In insurance contracts, words matter and with the simple addition of ‘and domestic violence,’ AXA turned a contract into a lifeline, giving women the freedom to leave abusive relationships and handing the entire industry a clear roadmap for reform. When the Titanium jury set out to find a Grand Prix idea, we wanted the first domino in a movement. Three Words was that idea, and our decision was instant and unanimous. In all my years judging at Cannes Lions, I’ve never seen a jury align so completely, so quickly.”
At Cannes Lions 2026, Three Words returned to win the Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix, recognising that the work’s commercial and social impact had continued to grow measurably in the year since launch. Three Words simultaneously topped the WARC Creative 100 global rankings in March 2026, accumulating more points across global and regional award shows than any other piece of advertising work in the world that year.
AXA has since begun rolling out the policy change in Italy and is actively exploring implementation in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, and Japan.
Why It Is the Most Important Campaign of Its Generation
Most purpose-driven campaigns measure success in impressions, awareness uplift, and sentiment scores. Three Words measures success in the number of women relocated to safe housing. The campaign’s output is not creative recognition. It is the fact that the insurer’s emergency phone line rang, and women answered it, and they were moved somewhere safer.
The advertising was the announcement. The policy was the product. The three words were the campaign.
Campaign Name: Three Words
Agency Name: Publicis Conseil, Paris / Media: Wavemaker France / PR: Publicis Consultants / Production: Prodigious / Documentary Director: Marjory Dejardin
Brand Name: AXA France / AXA Group
Location: France (national launch April 2025); rollout to Italy, UK, Ireland, Spain, Japan
