Hate Speech and cyberbullying had been serious problems in the digital world and the pandemic only exacerbated the issue. The increasing division within society contradicted with Deutsche Telekom’s brand promise, which seeks to connect people and encourage fair digital participation.

To strive for democratic, respectful coexistence among people and inspire digital civil courage, Telekom demonstrated concrete ways of dealing with hate and incitement on the internet. Those affected were given a platform to be heard. People also had the opportunity to experience how it feels to become a victim of a digital attack.

To credibly garner attention classic advertising seemed no option.

The goal of "No Hate Speech” campaign was thus to create awareness for hate speech & cyberbullying in everyday life and to portray Deutsche Telekom as a convincing and trustworthy partner that publicly and actively opposes digital exclusion. In doing so, we aim to elevate the Telekom brand.

As hate speech and cyberbullying concern everybody, we addressed a broad target-group (A 16-59).

But how to demonstrate our commitment in a credible way?

A classical campaign between shampoo and juice commercials would not work when dealing with such a sensitive topic. Therefore, we had to come up with a unique approach to deliver impactful and memorable messages.

Through a contextual approach in over ten channels and up to forty tailored formats, we created a strong network among paid, owned and earned media that demanded the audience’s undivided attention - wherever the topics took place or were discussed.

To maximize the connection between creation and media, we tailored our native integrations in close cooperation with different media channels.

The "Always-On Contextual Placement Strategy" - a continuous, contextual, and ever-adapting approach specifically tailored for the context and the media channels, reached the recipients with the appropriate mindset throughout the year.

After COVID-19 started dominating the social discourse, we developed an ongoing contextual POE-approach, to guarantee strong social impact. Launched in March, most activities happened from June onwards, wherever the topics happened or were discussed. Investing less than an average campaign budget, we reached great results.

TV was mainly used as contextual medium to maximize awareness. A highly integrated TV-cooperation with one of Germanys biggest stations created a contextual stage for the campaign.

In digital people were reached at the "scene of the action" by means of contextually appropriate articles & videos.

Maximum attention and interaction generated a social media experiment with the prominent influencer LeFloid. He published misleading "hate speech- & cyberbullying-content", which remained uncommented for one day, resulting in intense discussions in the community.

Individual single placements in editorial context drove the dialogue further among print, cinema, and audio. Audio was the main reach driver, cinema boosted emotion.

575m stimuli to stand up for an internet free from hate.

Custom-tailored for the context and channels, the approach cut-through the clutter, reached people in the right mindset and thus generated maximum relevance and attention.

In total population phantastic 61% became aware of Telekom’s engagement.

370% more attention - this could never have been achieved with a classic campaign.

The engagement also had significant effects on brand awareness and image regarding digital participation and customer proximity.

The perception of the brand achieved significant growth by 28%.

Creating platforms and carefully curating content for the context resulted in overproportionate emotional acceptance (+19% vs. average).

The strong social impact is also reflected by winning 44 partners.

Comments proof, that the campaign made many people (re-)think.

“Thank you for raising awareness and for your honesty and courage to question your own attitudes and habits. I definitely will start with it as well.”