ENGRAVED MEMORIES

TitleENGRAVED MEMORIES
BrandACTION INNOCENCE
Product/ServiceACTION INNOCENCE
Category B02. Non-profit / Foundation-led Education & Awareness
Entrant HAVAS GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Idea Creation HAVAS GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Media Placement HAVAS GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
PR HAVAS GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Production HAVAS GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Credits
Name Company Position
Gabriel Mauron Havas Geneva Creative Director
Simeon Brandner Havas Geneva Art Director
Antoine Karpat Havas Geneva Copywriter
Mathieu Cuvelier Havas Geneva Copywriter
Raphael Stein Havas Geneva Creative
Jean-Frédéric Passot cher ami Producer
Ahmed Hadj Ameur SEMPER Director

Describe any restrictions or regulations regarding Healthcare/RX/Pharma communications in your country/region including

We needed a framework and were obliged to develop a strong Bullying Preventive Group. In Switzerland, you have to build a team of professionals responsible for supporting the students. This campaign is not only about being right in the way we talk to them, but also how we handle them.

Describe the target audience and why your work is relevant to them. Pharma audience types:

Bullying remains one of the largest problem in schools and victims can experience negative physical and mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, health complaints and decreased academic achievements. The only solution is to talk about it and our engraved school desks provoke this essential discussion.

Background

With the growing influence of social media networks students are increasingly exposed to bullying and cyber-bullying online, in schools, everywhere. Today, 1 out of 6 has experienced bullying in school in their lifetime. No matter if it’s physical or verbal - a lot of them don’t speak out. Bullying can mark students’ lives forever. To break the silence and give them the means to express themselves, we had to reach them at the right place and the right time with an idea that resonates with them directly.

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

With illustrations directly engraved on school desks - that comes to life in augmented reality - the Engraved Memories project reaches students in their environment and creates a unique experience to stir conversation about a taboo subject: bullying. It automatically gets them and teachers talking.

Describe the creative idea

The first school desks that get students talking about bullying. School desks have always inspired students, letting them write or draw moods, fragments of stories. We realized they were the perfect channel via which we could communicate with them and encourage them to open up. We worked with 10 famous artists to create bespoke illustrations and stories we then engraved on school desks. The engraved desks were then placed in different classrooms across Switzerland. To get students to notice and engage with the illustrations, we chose a visual vocabulary that speaks to them and created stories that come to life through augmented reality. These stories are based on real testimonies and portray different aspects of bullying. A website (ose-en-parler.ch meaning dare-to-speak.ch) and a Bullying Preventive Group were also created to continue the dialogue. Now, they can - finally - dare to speak about it!

Describe the execution

With the help of 10 famous artists we started to engrave wooden school desks for the first school with 10 different illustrations. Thanks to a milling machine and a high precision technique using laser cutting technology, we obtained a very accurate (and beautiful) result so the augmented reality experience could perfectly work. We then rebuild the desks and replaced them directly in the classrooms where they originally were for students to discover and interact with them, generating 1 big conversation. It all started in 1 public high school. A number that rapidly increased to 32 and keeps growing…

Describe the strategy

We organized workshops’ sessions at school in order to best meet their expectations and learned one thing that war clear to them: they wouldn’t pay attention to any traditional execution about such a subject. At that time, we decided to directly target them in their classrooms to naturally provoke the conversation with a strong call to action: Dare to speak!

List the results

This campaign has already been adopted by several schools, reaching all the people involved directly by the issue: thousands of students and teachers. And these numbers are still growing due to the success of the experience. More than the increase of the site traffic (+60%), the most important result was definitively the launch of 1 big conversation: teachers and students reacted positively and launched the dialogue. The illustrations generated positive word-of-mouth from the students, amplifying the phenomenon. Therefore - and right after its launch in April - the Public Educational Department committed to implementing Engraved Memories across more schools within 12 months. 1 big conversation that is not about to stop…