Over 75 % of parents share their children’s data on social media, unaware of how it could impact their future. As a carrier whose business revolves around sharing, Deutsche Telekom felt responsible for protecting its positive power.

That is why we created the first activation campaign to de-activate: Asking parents to stop sharing their children’s data online.

Our campaign confronted them with a shocking film, functioning as a sharable centerpiece: spread on the same platforms parents use for sharing, as well as organic channels like WhatsApp. Providing educational tools like a social filter to pixelate children’s faces.

Social media exists to share one’s life with others, and there is nothing more important in a parent’s life than their children. By the age of five, the average child has 1,500 pictures of them on social media – shared without their consent. This is called “sharenting”.

With the current rise of AI making it easier than ever to abuse this data, The New York Times warns that by 2030, two-thirds of identity fraud cases will be connected to sharenting.

Even though lawmakers around the world are slowly turning their attention to this matter, the mass audience is still mostly unaware of the dangers of carelessly sharing children’s pictures and videos online. 2 out of 3 parents have followers and social media connections they’ve never met in real life before – making it easy for criminals to infiltrate their private circles.

2023 was the year AI tools became easy to use for everyone, raising a lot of concerns about the safety of the data we share in social media.

Yet, parents still share their kids' data on social media, unaware of potential consequences on their future: identity theft, scamming, harassment, deepfake pornography and child sexual abuse material.

As Europe’s leading telco brand, Deutsche Telekom’s ambition is to connect everyone to the opportunities of the digital world. But with the privacy of a whole generation at risk, Deutsche Telekom wanted to build on its legacy and step up to protect children against the recent arising threats.

The brief: Develop a PR-led campaign that brings awareness to the digital threat of online sharing, inspires behavioral change, and strengthens the brand’s perception as a protective force for the digital society.

Using the latest Al technology on a single photograph, we created the virtually aged version of a 9-year-old girl: Ella. In our film, she confronts her parents – and by extension parents worldwide – with the consequences of sharing kids' data online, sending a gut-wrenching warning from the future.

This way, our film became both a literal demonstration of AI manipulation capabilities and an emotional plea for the online safety of all children. As part of the campaign, we also created a solution to the problem: a social media filter pixelating children’s faces, empowering parents to #ShareWithCare and protect their children’s privacy.

An entire generation of oversharing parents doesn’t seem to understand that their memories shared online are actually data, that can be abused by criminals.

Spreading general awareness for the problem wouldn’t help us to get through to them. We had to go further and confront parents with the drastic impact of their own actions – closing the perceived gap between today’s behavior and tomorrow’s consequences.

To launch the first activation campaign that asks people to de-activate, we shared Ella’s message on all relevant social media platforms – targeting parents right where they are sharing their kids’ data. Within hours, it organically spread everywhere.

From TikTok to Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, thought leaders endorsed our message.

Parenting influencers spread it among their communities. We made the jump outside of social media to messengers like WhatsApp, turning our target audience into organic influencers themselves: advising families and friends to #ShareWithCare.

A campaign website provided parents, news outlets and institutions with educational resources for safer sharing.

As a solution, we published a social media filter to automatically pixelate children’s faces when videos and pictures are taken.

Ella’s message became a viral hit. Reaching over 51 million views in 71 countries and 3.7 billion earned impressions. It sparked the public’s demand for children’s online privacy – indicated by a 1000% increase in google searches for “sharenting” and over 184.000 visits to the German campaign landing page since its launch 3rd of July 2023.

Thousands of social media comments indicate behavioral change, confirmed in a pre/post-exposure survey. 2 out of 3 parents now oppose sharing their kid’s data online, and 55 % of parents who previously shared their children's images, will now conceal their identity in the future.

62 % of non-customer parents affirmed that Telekom’s data safety and virtual privacy commitment will make them consider the company as a telecommunications provider in the future.

Ella’s message is now an educational tool used by European police agencies, such as the Scotland police and the state polices across Germany.

With “A message from Ella”, we confronted a generation of oversharers. Today’s parents grew up in a time, where social media was care-free, public and generally safe. To these parents, pictures shared online are just memories.

But with the rise of online fraud, AI and deepfake technology, memories turn data, that can be easily exploited. We needed to change parent’s online behavior – to protect their children in the future.