Conquering Society’s Ugliest Goliaths: What Big Brands Can Learn From “Confessions of a Predator”
For Child Rescue Coalition (CRC), their challenge (or Goliath) wasn’t a business problem. It was a human one—one that they were acutely aware of but needed help conquering beyond their existing fight. There are more than 500,000+ child predators online every day, according to FBI data.* Child predators have access to Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) due to the easy, anonymous, and on-demand availability of these illicit graphic images and videos of child victims — with an alarming 85% of online predators becoming hands-on abusers.* To fight this crisis, CRC built technology that detects the sharing of CSAM in real time. In the hands of law enforcement, it can be used to identify, locate, and arrest predators. But too often, police departments lack the resources to institute the free technology and act on it. Lawmakers routinely neglect the crisis of CSAM, avoiding it entirely or making goodwill gestures without allocating funds to address the immense problem of CSAM.
Given the extremity of the problem against the lack of emergent action, we needed to find a way to make the invisible problem of CSAM visible to the politicians and policymakers who hold the power to make real change possible. A bold solution that would harness the power of creativity and storytelling using real-time data to drive measurable impact. A solution that traditional advertising would not solve for.
Launched during National Child Abuse Prevention Month, the “Confessions of a Predator” campaign effectively turned predators into their own whistleblowers demanding lawmakers take urgent action. A first-of-its-kind, real-time demonstration of CRC’s predator identification technology, transformed data into a confession to the legislators with the power to fight it. Through the creation of a proprietary mailing intelligence system, every time a predator shared CSAM, an email was automatically generated from that predator sending real data of evidence of them downloading CSAM to their legislators with a call to action to fight it—CRC’s free technology. Legislators were empowered to act by replying directly to the email in their inbox to learn how to use their influence to allocate resources to protect the children in their area.
The measurable results of the campaign would speak for themselves. It launched on April 11th and created 842 actionable criminal leads. By April 20th, 2023, 11 predator investigations were initiated. CRC’s monthly donors increased by 200%, and their website received a 24% increase in site traffic, 90% coming from new visitors. To date, the campaign's organic press outreach efforts have resulted in a 2.3M estimated media reach, all this generated from fully earned and donated media with no paid support. Most importantly, in 2023, 297 children were rescued and 1,293 predators were arrested—a 60% increase compared to 2022. The work was shortlisted for four Cannes awards in 2023 and was also an Immortals US finalist.
So, what can big brands learn about using creativity to conquer their biggest Goliaths? Here are three key takeaways:
1. Start from the challenge—it doesn’t have to be an “opportunity.” You can’t solve an “opportunity.” The best, most impactful work is in service of solving problems whether they be in business, culture, or in service of people. Determining the right answer to these Goliaths lies in asking the right questions. Our Goliath Out methodology uses data and human insight to unearth those questions, media-agnostic creative problem-solving to answer them, and data to substantiate the outcome. For Confessions of a Predator, the problem wasn’t an opportunity. The problem was that kids needed help, detectives and investigators needed resourcing, and lawmakers needed to use their power to provide those resources which included CRC’s proprietary technology.
2. The best way to solve the challenge and make an impact isn’t always advertising. The best way to shift perception and behaviour may actually lie in customer experience, sales, operations, product development, or other key areas of business. For Confessions of a Predator, the problem wasn’t something standard advertising could solve for. It was about knowing how and when to get in front of the changemakers we needed to reach. It was about creating compelling storytelling using strategy, creativity, and real-time data to get our story across in the most measurably impactful way.
3. Be brave. Don’t be afraid to be provocative in how you tackle the challenge. Don’t be afraid to make the right people mad. “Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about change.” - Malcolm X. According to new research published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, anger is more helpful at motivating people to take action than a neutral emotional state, amusement, desire, and sadness. We’re often taught to stray away from anger, but the reality is that when wielding it properly, you can get people to channel it and create measurable change. So, be okay with provoking and poking the bear—do it intentionally, wisely, and methodically, and then channel that for good.
