TELUS mobility
Stand with us to #EndBullying

The Goal

To create a friendlier world online. The products and services being sold online are the very things that enable a negative online space that is hurting kids. The brand wanted to help put an end to cyberbullying by encouraging Canadian youth to create a positive online space and empowering them to stand up and make a difference.

The Target

Given the higher resonance amongst parents and youth, specific media and connection tactics should skew heavily towards them.

Insights and Strategy

Canada is a tough place for kids to be online: We’re among the top 5 worst nations for cyberbullying. Telus, with the biggest mobile network in the country, understands this too well. In an indirect way, Telus feels responsible for cyberbullying. That’s why Telus has spent millions of dollars and a decade of efforts to help educate kids about being responsible digital citizens on its network. But what about when kids are not on that network? What about the times when kids connect on WiFi? That happens to be a lot of the time. Most kids’ first phone is only connected by WiFi. That’s why many kids are conditioned to ask “what’s the WiFi” wherever they go – cafes, restaurants, malls. They ask pretty much everywhere they’re outside the home.
The brand wanted to start the dialogue about cyberbullying and remind kids to be kind online at the perfect moment – the very second before they went online.

To do this, the brand leveraged the target’s natural behavior: It worked with wifi providers in public places to change the actual name of their WiFi to “EndBullying.” Kids had to read the brand’s message right before they spent a single second online.

The Plan

The team approached over 80 cafes and restaurants in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. They unanimously agreed to the idea. From there, the team identified the complexity of each WiFi set up and arranged the necessary logistics. Many big family chains such as Boston Pizza, Lone Star, and IL Fornelllo joined the program. The brand then helped each location to change the name of their WiFi to “Endbullying.”

Tent cards were placed on tables that outlined the Telus movement and listed the name of the WiFi network as “Endbullying.” When asked by guests, wait staff were directed to tell people the WiFi name or point to the tent card. All 80 establishments changed their network name to “EndBullying” for an entire month. By inserting the campaign message on the available WiFi networks screen, the brand facilitated an action at the critical point of digital entry for thousands of kids. Seconds before going online, kids actually heard the words “End Bullying” and had to touch the word ‘EndBullying’ on their phone screen. This is the first time a campaign message was placed within a device setting page.

The Results

Nearly 100,000 people used Endbullying WiFi during the course of the four-week program. The program helped contribute to over 60,000 people pledging to be kind online via the Telus web page. The program also garnered free earned media and social media posts. One example comes from radio DJ Josee Dye, of popular radio station Indie 88. After Josee visited one of the restaurants, she was so impressed that she spoke about it the next morning on her radio show and posted it on her Instagram page.

Telus received several positive testimonials from staff and patrons of the restaurants. “The login name caught me by surprise,” said one. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s pretty cool.” Said another, “An interesting way to bring up the issue, we’ve been talking about it since we sat down.” The message generated over 1M social media impressions. All because a phone company understood how to put messaging into the connection itself—an industry first.