Bullying in all forms – verbal, physical, social and cyber – is bad. We are taught this lesson at an early age. And yet, more than 3.2 million students report feeling left out or bullied at school each year. While solutions to bullying are not simple, Playworks, Stomp Out Bullying and the National Ad Council are using anti-bullying campaigns to flip the script on the traditional public service announcement this October for National Bullying Prevention Month, showing rather than telling the negative effects of bullying, and empowering and supporting individuals to lift up their peers.
Playworks’ Real Players Don’t Bully
Playworks’ campaign, Real Players Don’t Bully, which is sponsored by Google’s Be Internet Awesome, calls attention to the need to include all children on the elementary school playground and to empower the next generation to be kind on and offline. Top athletes, entertainers and politicians are lending their voices and talents to the cause, participating in activation events across the country, sharing personal stories around being bullied and posting to social media using #RealPlayersDontBully. The campaign aims to show kids that people from different backgrounds, including celebrities, can play together despite differences and that it’s cool to be kind.
STOMP Out Bullying’s Month of Action
STOMP Out Bullying is offering a month of anti-bullying activities to facilitate a month of action to encourage communities to work together to stop bullying and cyberbullying by increasing awareness of the prevalence and impact of bullying on children of all ages.
- Oct. 1: Launched its World Day of Bullying Prevention #BlueUp campaign, in partnership with Billboard, during which celebrities joined more than 100,000 youth who wore blue to raise awareness for the cause.
- Week of Oct. 8: Challenged students to make new friends at school, submit random acts of kindness stories to add to the organization’s website and celebrate National Coming Out Day.
- Week of Oct. 15: Branded as STAND UP for Others Week, the nonprofit provided students with opportunities to be part of the solution, such as creating videos and participating in flash mobs.
- Week of Oct. 22: Branded as the Week of Inclusion during which #NoOneEatsAlone and students can let their classmates know they are #HereForYou.
- Week of Oct. 29: Branded as the Week of Conversations Amongst Your Peers for which the nonprofit has provided youth with a downloadable communications kit to facilitate conversations.
National Ad Council’s Because of You | Honest Yearbook
The Ad Council’s Because of You campaign, which launched this month and will run on YouTube throughout the school year, leverages teens and young celebrities telling personal stories about how their peer’s actions and words, both good and bad, have impacted their lives. Viewers are encouraged to share their own stories on Twitter and Snapchat using #BecauseOfYou and are directed to the website where they can visit “Honest Cards,” an interactive activity that asks them to consider the effect specific words and behaviors has on their peers. For the “Honest Yearbook,” the nonprofit surprises select participants with an unexpectedly emotional situation during which teens showed up for what they thought was a regular yearbook photo shoot, but instead they received a tearful and touching thank you from those whose lives they have touched in a positive way.
Each of these anti-bullying campaigns shows the power of public-private partnerships, direct-to-consumer engagement and authentic storytelling. Join the conversation and help stop bullying before it starts!
