A recent study confirmed what a huge problem bullying was in Singapore. But no one even knew about it, because kids were reluctant to share their experiences. The Coalition Against Bullying for Children and Youth (CABCY) knew they had to break this silence. The objective of this direct campaign was to spark Singapore’s first-ever national conversation about bullying.

Social media had become notorious for cyber bullying in one of the world’s most digitally connected countries. It was apt that a platform where bullying was rampant could be turned into a safe space for sharing about bullying. Only a high number of shares on social media could get Singaporeans to notice the social problem of bullying. The shortening of the video became a powerful metaphor: Just like we could end the video by sharing it, we can end bullying by sharing our experiences about it.

Our insight was that the more you share the truth about bullying, the less it happens. We created the world’s first un-viral video: an animated film that told the story of a boy who was bullied. Every time someone shared the video, it got shorter, and the suffering of the boy was literally reduced till it got wiped out completely. The desired outcome was to get thousands of victims and bystanders to share on social media about the bullying issue, communicating the message to their millions of friends.

With over 50,000 Facebook shares (not just views or likes) and 900,000 Twitter impressions, the campaign resoundingly achieved its goal of sparking Singapore’s first-ever national conversation about bullying. Every sharer actively interacted with our anti-bullying message and communicated it to a total of 6.5 million friends. A further 29.6 million were exposed to the communication via other platforms. The CABCY Facebook community more than tripled. Singapore Member of Parliament Dr Lily Neo voiced her support to the cause. Beyond Singapore, we got unprecedented free coverage in over 30 countries. The social menace of bullying was finally out in the open.