This activation is an example of platform and media hacking: we decided to infiltrate a video game to go undercover and to hijack the habitual use of Fortnite in order to save children. For a small association as Enfant Bleu, going into Fortnite is a bold and creative strategy, and even more while hijacking it. Everybody expect us to be only present through an “old-school” hotline. But transferring this hotline, in a popular video game made the association modern.

France initial lockdown meant a difficult situation for a youth protection association : During weeks, children would not be able to attend school or sports clubs where cases of child abuse are usually spotted.

Our brief was to keep in touch with all the children, while they were at home, maybe a few meters away from an abusive parent.

One of the main objectives was to make sure kids were safe without arousing suspicions of grown-ups.

We had to be discreet and surgical.

We wanted to help children who are already difficult to reach in “a normal situation” but at that moment they were trapped home.

To make it easier for them to speak up, we had to make children comfortable

During the Covid lockdown, we all had to stay at home. But for abused children, it also meant spending all their days with their torturers, without a way to escape or alert.

As the youth child protection, the Enfant Bleu association had to find new ways to reach and help them during these hard times.

Abused children are a micro-target particularly tough to reach. They are so young, sometimes they do not fully understand what they endure, or have difficulties speaking up. We had to make it easy and comfortable for them to speak with us. But we were all at home, and we faced another challenge: how to help children without their parents knowing it? We thus decided to create a new canal of communication: a Fortnite Avatar.

Videogames industry produced very different titles. However, most popular ones, are usually played by the younger generations. As Fortnite is currently the most popular game among kids, we realize it was the place where kids hanged out when they could not leave their home.

Moreover in this multiplayer online game, communication is key. You have to speak to your teammate with voice or text chat all the time.

These features make of videogames, and this one in particular, a “socialization” space. Players are used to meet, talk and interact with new peoples daily. Enfant Bleu saw Fortnite as an already existing metaverse populated by many children and teens. Because it is virtual, there is no physical barrier. We know children don’t speak the same way to an adult if they see him “in real life”.

The association had to jump in the universe of Fortnite to reach children.

It is the perfect playground to hijack the socialization tools of the games such as the voice chat, but this time to discuss with our association instead of other players.

Since the strategy was to make only children aware of the character existence, we had to do everything undercover.

We would communicate about the avatar using only gaming influencers’ help who are followed and trusted by young audiences. It was our only way to make the character known by many children without putting them in danger.

A team of volunteers and psychologists from the association would take turns playing the character for him to be constantly online. Having this 24/7 hotline in Fortnite would make every child capable of speaking up at any moments.

As the association does not have a commercial purpose, the success of the work can be measured differently.

During the one-month lifetime of the undercover avatar, 1200 kids added him.

All of them had a discussion with one of the fifty volunteers and psychologists playing the character.

This led us to identify three cases of serious maltreatment, who were reported to the French Police for further assistance.

Some of them were fine, and just curious about the operation. Others opened up about difficulties they were experiencing such as online harassment. These topics were not directly related to child maltreatment, but we could dispatch these cases to the competent services to help them.

After the avatar going offline when revealed, the numbers of calls received by the association went up by 30%. It means that even when we were not on Fortnite they perceived us a trustworthy interlocutor.