Mission Talita

Objective

Talita, a Swedish organization working to combat prostitution and sex trafficking, sought to raise awareness and drive behavioral change among young men—a notoriously difficult demographic to reach through traditional media. Marking the organization's 20th anniversary in 2024, the campaign aimed to shift attitudes fueling demand for sexual services by leveraging the cultural power of one of the world's most played video games.

Solution

Mission Talita is a fully playable GTA V mod featuring four rescue-focused missions inspired by real survivor stories (Carmen, Bianca, Emmy, and Anastasija). Instead of replicating GTA's typical exploitation narratives, the mod inverts the familiar gameplay loop: players familiarize themselves with each woman's story before undertaking missions to help them escape. The free downloadable mod launches from missiontalita.com alongside an in-game Radio Talita station providing educational content and music, including tracks by Swedish House Mafia featuring Sting. Developed pro-bono by Åkestam Holst with modders FelixTheBlackCat and Vxruz_Danz, the campaign integrated merchandise and donation options into the campaign site, with all proceeds supporting Talita's ongoing work.

Results

Mission Talita won a Gold Award at the Clio Awards 2025 in the Games category under Branded Entertainment & Content as a Public Service entry.