Shockingly, New Zealand has the second worst rate of schoolyard bullying in the OECD. Last year in particular, bullying was at record levels, with 94% of teachers witnessing it happening in their schools. The Ministry of Education acknowledged that their past method of telling children to say “Stop it, I don’t like it,” wasn’t working, and they needed a different approach. They also wanted to stop bullying at the earliest stage of a child’s development. So, our task was to create a campaign that would captivate 4 to 7-year-olds and teach them how to combat bullying in the schoolyard.

Unlike past (largely unsuccessful) campaigns that tried to make victims more resilient, we shifted our focus onto a previously unconsidered group - the bystanders; because we recognised that attention is like oxygen for bullies - ignore them and they lose their puff. To let children experience this firsthand, we created ‘Oat the Goat’; NZ’s first interactive broadcast TV ad, where children could choose how character ‘Oat’ reacted to bullies, and directly influence the outcome of the story simply by switching the channel with their remote. Our 2-minute interactive experience not only took up the entire ad-break, it took children around the country on a captivating adventure, where they learnt right from wrong in a unique and entertaining way. By giving children freedom to make the wrong decision in Oat’s world, they could learn to make the right decision as a bystander in the real one.

We needed to reach as many 4 to 7-year-olds as possible with our bystander message. So, we worked with New Zealand’s largest television network, TVNZ, to ensure our live pick-a-path experience would launch simultaneously across their two channels during primetime. To successfully execute this ‘pick-a-path’ interaction, we needed each station to run our storylines at exactly the same moment. So, we even had to go as far as altering the length of TVNZ1’s national news so it would line up with our story on the other channel – right down to the nanosecond. Two-minutes is not a lot of time to cement our bystander message in children’s minds. So, as well as getting them to actively engage in the ad with their remotes, we called on children and their parents to continue Oat’s adventures online at bed-time.

We kicked off with 5-second teasers, prompting children to tune in at 7pm to take part in Oat’s adventure. We positioned the tale as ‘The story you can change with your TV remote’.

‘Oat the Goat’ then aired on December 22, across New Zealand’s two most popular TV channels. Both storylines began the same, but children were soon faced with two choices. Those watching TVNZ1 could stay on the channel to make character Oat laugh with the bullies. Or, they could switch to TVNZ2 to make Oat ignore the bullies and ask the victim if he’s ok. Likewise, children watching TVNZ2 could stay to ignore the bullies, or switch to TVNZ1 to laugh.

To truly captivate Kiwi children, we mirrored NZ’s beautiful landscapes and partnered with the NZ Symphony Orchestra to create a 78-piece orchestral score. At the end, children were prompted to experience more of Oat’s story at OatTheGoat.co.nz.

Launched during primetime when family viewing was at its peak, over 590,000 NZers tuned in to follow Oat’s journey and decide his path. 20% of our target audience watching on TVNZ1 actively changed to TVNZ2 to do the right thing. Heartwarmingly, no-one watching TVNZ2 switched channels to make Oat laugh along with the bullies. This equated to 42,000 individuals interacting with our ad (exceeding the client’s target of 30,000).

Our call to action ‘See what happens next at OatTheGoat.co.nz’ saw a spike in online engagement at 7pm:

• Site traffic increased by 240%

• New users increased by 257%

• To date, over 85% of 4-7-year-olds in NZ have read Oat the Goat online.

But, most importantly, we helped children realise the power they have as bystanders. Never before had a campaign given this group on the periphery the language and behaviour needed to stop bullying it in its tracks.