Ur (The Swedish Educational Broadcast Company): Bullying - In Virtual Reality

Credits & Description:

Agency: Mccann Stockholm Stockholm, Sweden
Client: Ur (The Swedish Educational Broadcast Company)
Product: "Det Handlar Om Dig". Television Series On The Subject Of Bullying.
Entrant: Mccann Stockholm Stockholm, Sweden
Title: Bullying
Designer: Petra Nilsson
Production Company: Colony / Stockholm / Giants & Toys / Stockholm / Mediamonks / Stockholm
Director: Måns Månsson
Producer: Erik Lindahl
Agency Producer: Maria Widström
Chief Marketing Officer: Carl-Johan Schultz
Creative Team: Petra Wiik / Per-Olof Lundgren
Editor: Hannes Falk / Stefan Ström
Technical Producer: Bo Gustafsson
Product/Service: "Det Handlar Om Dig". Television Series On The Subject Of Bullying.
Idea Creation: Mccann Stockholm Stockholm, Sweden
Copywriter: Per-Olof Lundgren (McCann Stockholm)
Social Media URL: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Ut...
The Campaign
The idea was to give people a real experience of how it feels to be bullied in a classroom in 2016. With advanced virtual reality technique, this project aimed to address the fact that bullying takes place everyday, in every classroom, at every school, all over the world.
While this is virtual reality for most of us, it’s the reality for thousands of children, with one big difference that they can’t turn their experience off.
The idea was to open peoples’ eyes by giving them a brutally honest experience of the life of a bullied 16-year-old. We invited influencers and other people to take part of a VR-experience at the place where the actual experience took place – in the same classroom and at the same chair as the bullied victim. And they didn't know what they were about to experience.
Execution
We created one main campaign carrier to spark awareness and curiosity with the purpose to be emotionally strong that people would share. But not showing too much of the virtual reality experience, instead focusing on people's reactions when being exposed to bullying.
We created one “behind the VR-glasses” film to give interested people a more depend understanding of the experience.
Via YouTube 360, Facebook 360 or via an app SVT360, we launched the virtual reality experience as a 360-solution for people to try the experience themselves.
The platform for the campaign was UR’s Facebook page since the budget was extremely small. The campaign components were also distributed on YouTube.
All campaign components were launched the first day of the campaign and the media budget was executed one day after.
The campaign started 6th of April and ran throughout two weeks.
- 20% reach of the Swedish population in 4 days with a media budget of €400.
- 244 000 people volunteered to be bullied in VR.
- Teachers are requesting the project to be integrated into the school curriculum.
– 17% Engagement rate
The Situation
Due to the limited budget provided by UR (The Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company) we needed to rely on the public’s ability and willingness to share our message about bullying.
Together with carefully selected influencers, we let more than 20 % of Swedish population experience bullying.
The campaign has given UR a voice in the public room of bullying making them relevant, modern and bold in the yes of consumers and teachers. This campaign has been the most successful campaign ever for UR in the perspective of social engagement, reach and interest.
The Strategy
Bullying is something that all people can relate to. Young and old. Bullied and bullies.
In that way, our potential target audience is very broad and we wanted to keep it that way. Having said that, we did have sub-audiences that we wanted to pinpoint in particular (teachers and educational decision makers).
We selected influencers that's been active in bullying-related issues before.
We ended up with a mix of bloggers, TV celebrities and athletes with big social networks.
In addition to give the influencers a real experience of bullying, we had a second motive when choosing the VR technique.
The newsworthiness of bullying itself is zero. We all know bullying exist.
But to add the tech-level to the project, we reached tech and trend magazines, we opened up peoples’ eyes to this amazing technique that can be useful in many educational ways in the future.
UR (Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company) is part of the public service broadcasting group in Sweden, with Swedish Radio (SR) and Swedish Television (SVT). UR’s mandate is to produce and broadcast educational and general knowledge programmes which enhance, fill out, and strengthen the work of others active in education.