Knock Knock: The Persistence Behind the Grand Prix Winner That’s a Lifeline for Korea’s Crime Victims

“Nothing will change unless you knock,” says Seongphil Hwang. “You have to continuously knock, and only then you have the possibility that changes will be made. Even in this case, if we hadn’t knocked on the doors of the Korean National Police Agency, this change would not have happened. It took a lot of convincing, a lot of knocking on the doors of other police departments as well. In the face of disagreement and challenges, keep knocking the door.”

In the bowels of the Palais des Festivals of Cannes, creative director Seongphil Hwang, copywriter Seungree Kang and associate CX strategist Jiwon Lee at Cheil Worldwide are passionately sharing the story of ‘Knock Knock’, a remarkable idea that enables victims of domestic violence to report abuse to the police with just two taps on their smartphone. It shares the victim’s location and allows them to stream evidence to the police live and it’s proven to be transformative in a country where only 1.7% of domestic violence is reported. 

The story of this idea is one of proactiveness, inventiveness, ambition, unlikely partnerships and, above all, persistence. And it’s a story that begins in January 2022, when South Korea’s low reporting rate for domestic violence had become a national news story that caught the Cheil team’s eye. At the same time, an audio recording of a woman calling the police to report violence, while pretending to be ordering food, had gone viral in the nation.

“She was quick witted and that’s how she communicated her address. The policeman was very intelligent because he understood right away and came to her assistance. But we felt like this was very lucky and not all victims will be this lucky. So, as an agency, we needed to think of a creative to better connect with the police,” explains Seongphil Hwang.

The team realised that there needed to be a simpler way for victims to report domestic violence undetected by their abusers, and it would require a unified code between victim and police, one so simple that even children could use it.

“We were exploring ideas and we were inspired by the Morse code. With Morse code you don’t need verbal communication, you can communicate through tapping, so that’s how we got the idea. And we consulted with the police as well,” says Seongphil explaining the seeds of the idea.

And so in March 2022, Cheil ‘knocked’ on the door of the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA). The police were surprisingly receptive. It turned out they had quite a bit of technology at their disposal already but hadn’t quite realised its potential. From there, the teams worked hand in hand to figure out exactly what the code would look like, how it would work and more.

Of course, working on a project with such serious implications and working with a government agency that carries heavy responsibility came with a lot of challenges. This was not a project anyone could afford to get wrong.

“It’s not always easy to work with a government organisation, in the sense that they were very cooperative but this is a life-changing solution. If it goes wrong, you will fail so many people. So the police agency, at every single step, were very cautious and every single step needed to be vetted. That process took a lot of time and a lot of convincing, a lot of data and a lot of talking.”

That’s not to say that they weren’t open minded collaborators - Seongphil is blown away by the trust placed in the team by the KNPA and their willingness to push forward in the face of such difficulties.

Developing the service took six months of careful work, and in September it was launched with a clever comms campaign designed to reach women in the places they felt safest.

“We thought we needed to reach out to women through female-dominated places. So we went to beauty salons, nail salons, beauty channels, somewhere a lot of women would pay attention and they could comfortably talk about ‘Knock Knock’ and spread word naturally. But then our creative was very effective,” says Seungkree Kang.

The creative idea and media strategy was unconventional and inspired. Among the unusual media placements, Cheil placed notices under the face holes in massage parlours, and that inventiveness turned ‘Knock Knock’ into a real news story. Moreover, the KNPA was able to use its own channels to share the service.

The new service is still relatively young, but the team are seeing increases in reporting rates of domestic violence in their month-to-month tracking. But what’s been really astounding is to see that people have taken ‘Knock Knock’ to heart and are now using it to report other kinds of crime. And as the service ripples out across Korean society, other government agencies are starting to realise this approach - or something similar - could be useful.

“Our initial goal was domestic violence, but then it turned out that many victims needed to silently report to the police. That included the deaf community of course, they can obviously benefit from this programme. We’ve seen reports where school violence was resolved, because when you’re in front of your bully it can be hard. And also drug offenders have been arrested,” says the team. “And last month we were approached by our Korean Fire Department - they have a different reporting system, but in a fire it’s very hard to communicate so they acknowledged that this is a solution they might need.”

It’s a service that’s been officially adopted by the KNPA and is creating an important lifeline - and in recognition of this, at the 2023 Cannes Lions, the project was awarded the Glass Lion Grand Prix. And Seongphil is clear, none of it would have been possible without a lot of knocking and the support of the KNPA.

“It works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It’s an ongoing solution and it was only possible because of the support of our police force. They are still working through ‘Knock Knock’ and we want to send our thanks to them and give our biggest gratitude to the KNPA for making this possible.”