“Kids’ stuff” is a convenient expression for things adults do not intend to spend too much time dealing with. A children’s argument, misunderstanding or teasing can easily be dismissed as a passing episode. But for a child experiencing online violence, that judgement can mean that the seriousness of what they are going through remains unrecognised.
The campaign Dječja posla, developed by BBDO Zagreb for A1 Hrvatska, turned a familiar phrase into a reason for adults to pay closer attention to what they tend to neglect. Parents and teachers were the primary audience: the people expected to recognise the problem and provide support. The commercial introduced the issue, while other channels, primarily online, directed audiences towards available help, counselling and conversation.
Two golds at BalCannes, in the Telecommunications and Health & Well-being categories, provide the occasion for a conversation in the Behind the Winning Idea series about how the campaign came about and its connection to the brand’s years of work on this problem. Martina Pavić from BBDO Zagreb discusses the moment when the name began to guide the creative process, the division of tasks between channels and telecommunications companies’ responsibility for the problems the online world has brought into children’s everyday lives.
What problem did you want to address with the campaign Dječja posla, who were you primarily speaking to and what response did you want to evoke from the audience?
Online violence among children and young people is a problem that receives too little attention and too little action to resolve it, for the simple reason that it is invisible. There are no bruises or scars, except those on the soul – and that makes it much easier to sweep it under the carpet and pretend that nothing happened.
Where did you identify the greatest gap between the experiences of children facing online violence and the way adults discuss or downplay the problem?
I would say that this gap is greater among older children, because teenagers naturally go through a process of separating from their parents. They want to be independent, strong and cool – so it is difficult to admit that something affects them, or how deeply it affects them.
The expression “kids’ stuff” is often used for situations adults do not consider serious enough. At what point did that phrase grow from a name into an idea that could carry an entire campaign?
The creative process is difficult to describe. Things simmer for days, you talk, you think… it rarely follows a predictable path – but that phrase literally came to me at one moment and the pieces began to fall into place. When I shared it with my colleagues, it resonated strongly with all of us, and from there the campaign almost wrote itself.
The main film introduced the problem, while the BOB chatbot, professional counselling and conversation cards were part of the broader support system provided by A1 Hrvatska and its partners. How did you connect the campaign with these tools so that, after recognising the problem, the audience could actually take action?
The media plan did its job here; each channel had its own task. As you said, the TV commercial introduced the issue, while on other channels, mostly online, we shared information about everything available for help, counselling and conversation. I must emphasise, though, that this campaign was not primarily aimed at children / victims of violence, but specifically at parents and teachers, who should know how to recognise the problem and provide children with support.
The campaign Dječja posla won golds at BalCannes in the Telecommunications and Health & Well-being categories. What enabled the same project to be recognised both as relevant communication for a telecommunications brand and as a contribution to children’s well-being?
A1 is a telecommunications company and, as such, does not only provide its basic services, but is also aware of the problems the online world creates. Problems that did not even exist before the birth of the internet. The online world has opened the door to forms of violence that were previously unknown – and fighting them is certainly part of the social responsibility every telecommunications company should take on. A1 has been addressing this problem continuously for several years, not just “for show”, and I think that is precisely why this campaign was recognised. Not only as a “catchy” idea for an award at a festival, but as part of systematic work and the development of very concrete tools for tackling online violence.
