With the growing influence of social media networks students are increasingly exposed to bullying and cyber-bullying online, in schools, everywhere. Today, 1 out of 6 has experienced bullying in school in their lifetime. No matter if it’s physical or verbal - a lot of them don’t speak out. Bullying can mark students’ lives forever. To break the silence and give them the means to express themselves, we had to reach them at the right place and the right time with an idea that resonates with them directly.

The first school desks that get students talking about bullying.

We created the first school desks with engraved illustrations that tell stories about bullying.

They directly target students in their environment and creates a unique experience to open the conversation about this taboo subject. With the will to come closer to students, we chose a visual vocabulary that speaks to young people with the help of famous artists. 10 artists. 10 themes. 10 illustrations engraved on desks dispatched on different classrooms. These illustrations come to life in augmented reality with a dedicated mobile app and automatically get students and teachers together to start talking about it.

A website (ose-en-parler.ch meaning dare-to-speak.ch) and a Bullying Preventive Group were also created to continue the dialogue. Now, they can - finally - dare to speak about it!

We organized workshops’ sessions at school in order to best meet their expectations and learned one thing that war clear to them: they wouldn’t pay attention to any traditional execution about such a subject. At that time, we decided to directly target them in their classrooms to naturally provoke the conversation with a strong call to action: Dare to speak!

With the help of 10 famous artists we started to engrave wooden school desks for the first school with 10 different illustrations. Thanks to a milling machine and a high precision technique using laser cutting technology, we obtained a very accurate (and beautiful) result so the augmented reality experience could perfectly work. We then rebuild the desks and replaced them directly in the classrooms where they originally were for students to discover and interact with them, generating 1 big conversation. It all started in 1 public high school. A number that rapidly increased to 32 and keeps growing…

This campaign has already been adopted by several schools, reaching all the people involved directly by the issue: thousands of students and teachers. And these numbers are still growing due to the success of the experience. More than the increase of the site traffic (+60%), the most important result was definitively the launch of 1 big conversation: teachers and students reacted positively and launched the dialogue. The illustrations generated positive word-of-mouth from the students, amplifying the phenomenon. Therefore - and right after its launch in April - the Public Educational Department committed to implementing Engraved Memories across more schools within 12 months. 1 big conversation that is not about to stop…

Today’s numbers:

1 big conversation

32 schools involved

1287 teachers made aware

3852 parents informed

22'450 students reached