Social media isn’t all memes and fun dance challenges. It’s also a place of intense bullying. The bullying that previously occurred in the schoolyard, where adults could see it, has moved to mobile phones and computers. It happens in secret, out of sight of adults.

Almost 40% of all children and teenagers in Sweden have been bullied online this past year, but only half of them have told an adult about it. According to the anti-bullying organisation Friends, adults taking action is absolutely essential if bullying is to be stopped. But, for that to happen, they actually need to know what’s going on behind the children’s screens.

The brief was to create a campaign that informs parents about bullying online, and incentivize them to act.

Our objective was to increase adult’s awareness of cyberbullying.

Horrifying notifications from bullied children’s phones were streamed to thousands of digital out of homes all over Sweden. The notifications popped up on top of the regular advertising. They intruded the screen all around the clock, just like they do on bullied children’s phones. Furthermore, the execution took advantage of the DOOH’s similarity in shape to mobile screens, which made it striking.

The campaign was picked up by Sweden's biggest TV station (SVT) who ran a 7 minute long feature and interview with Friends about the campaign and the cause. It was also picked up by Sweden's biggest radio network (SR) in a 5 minute feature, evening press TV for an 8 minute interview and by several other papers.

The locations of the DOOHs had ca 21 399 000 visits during the week of the campaign, in a country with roughly 10 million inhabitants.

Interaction on Friends social media channels increased by roughly 400% and traffic on their website by 242%.

And, most importantly, the new Friends annual report shows that awareness of cyberbullying among adults has increased by 14% since before the campaign