Situation:

Bullying in different gaming platforms is a problem that grows each year, often crossing over from the virtual into the real world. According to a study by the British NGO Ditch The Label “1 in 2 young gamers have been bullied while playing online”.

Brief:

Pony Malta, the beverage that inspires teenagers to be as good as they can be, needed to create an action that could reduce the rates of this problem.

Objective:

Create a change in the social behavior that unites teenagers through an action that can fight against bullying in video games.

Cyberbullying has been increasing in the video games world. For that reason on the 29th of August, The International Gamer Day, Pony Malta, one of the most popular drinks amongst teens in Colombia, decided to create an online initiative: USERNAMES AGAINST BULLYING, an action that invited gamers from all Latin America and the world to change their video game usernames for a message against bullying.

We wanted to give a powerful message against bullying, but since we couldn't advertise within video games, we invented a new media through the most viewed, personal, and iconic space across them: usernames. By using this new media, we made visible cyberbullying, a problem that has been growing amongst teens, and to make it possible we invited the best gamers in Latin America to change their usernames for a message against bullying.

We launched the movement on August 29th, International Gamer Day with some of the best gamers of Latin America, El Chino, The Donato, Hamid, and Hectorino through a live stream in one of the most popular video games around the world: Free Fire.

It all began when one of the players in the game started to receive bullying messages from users that were connected and when the conversation reached its highest peak, the gamers announced the campaigning, inviting the more than 5,000 thousand people connected to change their usernames for a message against bullying. Then, the action spread to almost every single popular game in the world: Fortnite, Call Of Duty, Clash Royal, Minecraft, Fifa, League Of Legends, NBA, and so on.

• Our initiative reached 14 million gamers in 11 different countries.

• We connected more than 5.5 million people in streaming.

• We were Trending Topic in Colombia during the first weekend.

• 50k USD in Free Press only on the first day.

• The Ministry of Technology and Communications and one of the largest anti-bullying NGOs endorsed our campaign to give psychological advice to more than 13 bullied kids who saw the campaign and asked for help.