ROYAL FOUNDATION: ‘STOP SPEAK SUPPORT’
A public information film for the gif generation
PROBLEM: Young people want guidance, but they hate being lectured to.
SOLUTION: Break the ice with Matt Berry and an aubergine.
MEDIA: TVC/SOCIAL/CONTENT/DIGITAL/OOH
There’s an increasing realisation among policymakers and media companies that online bullying is a serious issue. To raise awareness and encourage safer online spaces, the Royal Foundation has put together a taskforce of some of the main child protection organisations and the biggest names in media and tech.
After over a year, the taskforce had created an action plan focusing on young people who witness online bullying. They’d also enlisted the help of youth marketing experts Livity. But what the project needed was a campaign focus and identity, so I was brought in as creative lead.
Once we’d settled on the mnemonic ‘Stop Speak Support’, myself and the team at Livity enlisted the help of Partizan and cult animator James Curran and developed scripts which we tested with groups of young people.
It was a tricky balancing act: we needed to create content that some of the most established organisations in the country were happy to endorse but that young people wouldn’t cringe at – or worse, completely ignore. The answer was to deliver a playful update of the public information film: a Protect and Survive for the gif generation, complete with knob gags, bored lolcats and a Matt Berry voiceover.
Given the sensitivity of the issue to tech companies and network providers, the Royal Foundation leveraged some incredible free media, including the BT Tower, Wembley Stadium and prominent placements on Facebook, Instagram and the gaming site Supercell. This last tie-in alone delivered over 400,000 views of one of our videos in the first week of the campaign.
PR-wise, the campaign was picked up by traditional media and online influencers, who together helped #stopspeaksupport (plus specially created emoji) trend on Twitter. And best of all, the campaign and the anti-bullying code was picked up and promoted by schools around the country.
