Bursting the Bully Bubble

Using chewing gum as a thought cloud to raise awareness about bullying

Team Mom/Dad
IMAGE: Ann Laughlin

THE ASSIGNMENT
As students of creativity, we were tasked with creating value with chewing gum.
BUT chewing gum: is common-place, is inexpensive, is used and thrown away, and has very little value.

SO, to create value, we must tie it to something BIGGER....

IMAGE: ThinkStock/121260268

GUM + BULLYING
Our goal for this project is to create value by bringing awareness to the issue of bullying in a way that resonates with kids.

Gum is a natural part of social interaction among kids.

We chose to reframe gum as an iconic symbol of teenagers, embedded with a message to bring attention to the issue of bullying.

IMAGE: ThinkStock/200265539

THE INSIGHT
"The Science of the Positive theory amplifies the positive that already exists in a community." (Linkenbach, J.) This approach works well with teens who are highly susceptible to peer pressure. It can be used to bust myths and highlight the positive actions teens can take to help. THE MYTH TO BUST: The belief that many youth

IMAGE: ThinkStock/rbty_11

THE EXPERIMENT
Use bubble gum as a comic-style dialog box to promote an antibullying message through social media.

twitter.com/WordsStick wordsstick.tumblr.com/

WE RAISED PUBLIC AWARENESS

We measured the value of public awareness via Twitter. Day 1: 30 Followers, 82 Retweets, 11 Favorites Katie Couric retweeted us to her 825k fans and helped us get almost 80 additional RTs & 7 favorites! Roseanne Barr favorited two of our tweets to her 500k fans as well!

WE CREATED VALUE FOR OUR TARGET

We engaged young people in development to make sure they resonated. Then the kids took on and spread the message beyond our campaign:

One decided to have her screen printing class make t-shirts with the image and message. Others took & tweeted photos of themselves blowing bubbles with our messages.

WE CREATED VALUE FOR OURSELVES IN THE PROCESS

We learned online teaming dynamics and how to integrate different ways of participating asynchronously. (It helped that our topic is something all of us could contribute to.) We learned how to use Twitter (and how to get suspended). We learned about the Science of the Positive Theory.

We learned a bit about digital image rights.

We had conversations with our kids about bullying that could in turn be

TEAM MOM/DAD
ANEELA IDNANI, ANN LAUGHLIN, LIBIA BERNARDO DUARTE, MEGAN TORRANCE, LINDSAY LAMONT, KENDRA DUNN, KEVIN ENGELLANT, HARRISON HELTERBRAND, STEPHEN LEUNG, GINA GEORGE, DAVID MARTIN SSEREMBA