In the wake of terror attacks across the UK, NSPCC’s Childline had seen an alarming rise in the number of children suffering from racial or religious discrimination.

In 2016-2017 Childline’s webpages saw 60,352 visits looking for help with issues surrounding bullying because of ethnicity and culture. While white British children saw bullying as their fifth most pressing worry, it was the most common concern for children from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. Our aim was to Drive awareness of Childline to the BAME communities in order to connect to people who might be in need - but who don’t believe Childline is for them.

Childline’s brand tracker also revealed that BAME children had lower levels of trust in the helpline and were less likely to engage with Childline than white British children. Childline wanted children from BAME backgrounds to know that they could be trusted to help prevent bullying because they understood them and their worries.

When we used traditional comms the BAME communities simply didn’t think Childline was talking to them. We would need to find a way that went underground and surprised an audience in the most unexpected, engaging way.

We needed an approach that talked to young BAME audiences in a way they could relate to, an approach that didn’t fall into the common trap of being preachy and un-relatable.

Restrictions on targeting based on age and ethnicity make it hard to reach our audience with a traditional social media campaign. Our research revealed that while our audiences were very distinct, grime music is a hugely popular, universal passion point, and so that became our audience identifier. Our idea was to channel the voice of Childline through the words and beats of Grime, helping Childline to become instantly relatable to our target audience.

We partnered with one of the UK’s foremost grime music publishers – SBTV. We identified four diverse artists, each with personal experiences of racial or religious discrimination. They produced bespoke tracks that communicated to our audience on their own terms and encouraged them to speak up.

To add to this, some of our artists had previous criminal convictions or produced music that could cause offense, so we had to convince Childline of the value in working with such people and of their ability to strike a chord with children who idolise them and share their views. This authenticity would affect both trust and behavioural change.

Via SBTV channels, we teased with samples of edits before releasing the finalised tracks and distributing across paid social channels with highly targeted filters. To drive further awareness, we supported stylistically consistent videos which explored the issues affecting these children.

In the six weeks following our campaign, Childline saw an incredible 22% increase in counselling sessions concerning religious or racial bullying.

Our campaign achieved over 15 million impressions and 2 million engagements. It also received countless positive comments across social media, applauding the courage of the artists in speaking out. Brand tracker results revealed a positive shift in opinion of Childline amongst children from BAME backgrounds.

Propensity to ‘definitely’ contact Childline increased from 17% to 20%, with propensity to ‘probably’ contact increasing from 27% to 33%. Trust in Childline amongst children from BAME backgrounds also saw an increase; those who said they trusted Childline ‘a lot’ increased from 32% to 35%, with those who said they trusted Childline ‘a little’ increasing from 21% to 33%.

These results highlight how our campaign gave young people experiencing difficult situations the courage to speak up and engage with Childline.