Working with French collective “Stop harcèlement de rue” (“Stop street harassment”), our challenge was to target the people who aren’t usually the target of street harassment, and have a hard time realizing just how oppressive street harassment is on a daily basis. This is why we created the first app that simulates street harassment: HÉ.

But that’s not how we presented it in the app store : it was described as the French version of YO, a very popular social media app where all you can do is send “YO”s to your friends. HÉ works exactly the same way : you can send “HÉ”’s yo your friends, and that’s about it.

But then, out of nowhere, an unknown user, MARTIN, adds himself to your list of friends, and starts sending you HÉ’s, way too many HÉ’S. And the HÉ’s transform into full blown, repetitive insults, exactly the same way as street harassment.

Only one solution left : block MARTIN from your list of friends. This is when our message appears : “If you’ve escaped today, for many, street harassment is an everyday problem”. Followed by a link to Stop Harcèlement de Rue‘s website, as well as an option to share the app and trick your friends.

HÉ! was presented in the app store as the French version of YO. With HÉ!, you simply send HÉ’s instead of Yo’s.

But out of nowhere, an unknown user, MARTIN88, adds himself to your list of friends, and starts harassing you with HÉ’s, that quickly turn into insults, exactly like street harassment.

One solution left : block MARTIN88 from your list of friends. This is when our message appears : “If you’ve escaped today, for many, street harassment is an everyday problem”. Followed by a link the collective’s website, and an option to share the app and trick your friends.

The app was downloaded over 4000 times on the first day of it’s release. With no media buying, the video reveal was viewed over 90 000 times in the first two days.

The traffic on the different platforms of “Stop Harcèlement de Rue” had a huge peak : +11 000 % on Youtube, 4500% on Facebook, 5500% on Twitter. The collective which exists for just over a year became huge in the media : many major magazines and blogs (Elle, L’Express, Marie Claire, Le Figaro,…) published articles about the app, they were invited on Canal + (a major French TV channel), and the debates surrounding street harassment and our app flourished on social media, proving that our larger target audience was indeed reached.