For the past two decades, the stopping power of music has been an integral element of TELUS’s advertising. From signature tracks by the most prominent musicians of our time, to collaborations with up and coming local bands, the art of matching music to the message is one of the reasons that TELUS has become one of the most iconic and likeable brands in Canada.

Situation

One million kids in Canada are cyberbullied every month. It’s a growing problem, with sometimes tragic consequences.

As one of Canada’s largest telcos, TELUS recognized that in order to truly deliver on their brand promise, ‘the future is friendly’, they needed to do everything in their power to ensure the technology they sell isn’t enabling the negative online experiences that are harming our kids.

Brief

Find a way to engage and activate kids around TELUS’ #EndBullying initiative during the weeks leading up to Anti-bullying week when the cause will be more topical.

Objectives

Get kids to embrace our #EndBullying message and act on it.

1. Action: Reach 1 million pledges to be kind online by the end of 2018

2. Engagement: Achieve 1.0M impressions during the campaign period

No single person can end cyberbullying - but there is remarkable strength in numbers.

Though adults are inclined to step in and help, with cyberbullying only kids can credibly confront the issue. But standing up to cyberbullying is too much to ask of individuals: individuals get bullied—but groups don’t. Studies show that when youth band together, they can effectively end cyberbullying almost immediately. In fact, within 10 seconds of intervening cyberbullying is stopped.

Progress required mobilising a generation of digital natives to stand together against cyberbullying, so our communications strategy was rooted in the idea ‘Strength in Numbers’. The power of youth is in their collective voice, and by inspiring them to stand together we could effectively prevent and stop cyberbullying.

TELUS launched a National integrated campaign asking kids to stand together and pledge to be kind online. But they knew that ads alone wouldn’t be enough to engage kids and activate them around the cause.

To get them to take notice of the message, amplify it, and act on it, it had to be delivered in

a relevant channel, using familiar language, by a credible source. The solution could not look

or feel anything like conventional advertising; TELUS had to create something that could exist on its own merits within popular culture.

So, TELUS partnered with SonReal, a Juno-nominated Vancouver-based rapper with a strong youth following, to create a positively-charged anthem that kids could rally around. He’d seen how his nieces and nephews were affected by cyberbullying and, like most recording artists, had been on the receiving end himself.

Implementation

Leveraging SonReal’s social influence, we first launched the #EndBullying anthem, “No More” to his fans on a variety of social platforms leading up to Anti-bullying week, when the conversations would be most topical. He performed the song live at WE Day in front of an audience of 18,000 youth to spread the message. And through a press tour across the country, including iHeart radio, Virgin Radio and schools, he spread the anti-cyberbullying message and showed youth they are not alone.

Timeline

November 9 – December 15, 2018

Placement

Radio:

- virgin radio integration

OOH:

- Wildpostings

Digital:

- Spotify audio ads

- facebook/ Instagram video

- facebook/instagram promoted posts

- facebook/instagram lead ads

- facebook/ instagram stories (QC)

- twitter video conversation card

- Youtube

- programmatic

Scale

National campaign with >500k CAD budget.

Reach

Even though our main goal was engagement, we were still able to reach 45% of at-risk youth in Canada.

Engagement

- Radio - 4,000,000 est impressions

- Wildposting - 8,573,600 est impressions

- Digital - (ROC) 17,641,307 est impressions

Impact

While TELUS knew they couldn’t end cyberbullying outright, the results show there is potential to affect real and sustainable change.

• 1 million+ audio streams

• 1.5 million+ YouTube video views

• “No More” became the fastest SonReal video to hit 1 million views

• Helping to double our target with over 2 million pledges to be kind online