The goal:

The YWCA Montreal, a non-profit organization that helps build a better future for women and girls, wanted to bring awareness to the use of social media platforms, such as Instagram, by online predators as a sexual exploitation recruitment tool. The campaign goal was to encourage young women across the province to view social media gifts and ‘too good to be true’ offers with a more critical eye.

The target:

Our primary target audience was adolescent and teenage girls in Quebec urban centres – the #1 target for online sexual predators who use social platforms to scout for victims. These girls are highly active on social media, often using Instagram as an ‘aspirational’ platform to seek popularity through glamorous photography showcasing the latest in fashion, beauty and style.

Insights and strategy:

Recent data, released by Canada’s tipline to report the online sexual exploitation of children, indicates that one in seven youths between the ages of 10 and 17 are subject to unwanted online sexual solicitation and 26% of children send personal information to strangers. The average recruitment age for the purposes of sexual exploitation is around 15 years. To bring this issue to light and convince girls to be more vigilant online, we decided to fight fire with fire, and took one of the most utilized ‘predatory’ tools on social platforms – gifts – and used it to create awareness about the dangers of online sexual predators in a thought-provoking way.

The plan:

On the morning of International Women's Day, March 8, 2019, seven young celebrities – authors, athletes, actresses and influencers from across Quebec – shared beautiful editorial-style photos of themselves wearing trendy clothing and accessories on their Instagram platforms. The posts led to a fake online store featuring shopping tags that had been hijacked to present the items as completely free. When users clicked on the amazing offer, the alarming message “Laisse-toi pas acheter” (Don’t get bought off) was displayed, reminding girls about the need to exercise caution when faced with freebies that could easily turn out to be fake gifts from online predators. The pro-bono campaign also highlighted the importance of talking to someone trustworthy with resources provided to address concerns that young girls or their friends might have about suspicious situations.

Technology and tools:

The campaign was entirely based off Instagram, using posts and stories as well as Instagram shopping tags that morphed into the poignant, hidden message to raise awareness about the issue.

User experience:

The user journey was simple. Leveraging the star-power and influence of the seven young women, the target audience simply had to click to receive the cautionary message and resource links, courtesy of the YWCA.

Supporting channels:

This was an organic digital campaign based within the social media platform, Instagram. Hijacked shopping tags led to resources housed on the YWCA Montreal website. Public relations supported the campaign launch with dedicated media outreach.

The results:

The innovation behind the campaign came from combining the massive popularity of Instagram with glamorous photography and the appeal generated by an irresistible bargain and the undeniable influence of the selected celebrities. This combination provided for a far-reaching campaign that transformed a potential recruitment method into a powerful prevention tool.

In just 24 hours, we reached 1.5 million people on Instagram, achieving an engagement rate of 8.3%. With over 40,000 visitors to the website via Instagram, the campaign achieved a conversion rate of 2.61%. Through wide-spread media coverage, the campaign achieved a total reach of 4 million.