Confronting digital sex crime: Amnesty Korea’s ‘BRAVE’ drtv campaign

It’s not just in Korea that digital sex crimes are a problem. But we need to be clear that there is a particular problem here that is made worse by advanced technology and cultural issues – you may have seen cases relating to prominent K-pop bands.

Digital sex crimes include the production and distribution of pornography, images of sexual violence, sex trafficking, and issues such as revenge porn. Over the past decade, digital sex crime has increased around 23 times over in Korea, and more than half of those exploited are teenagers. For those affected, it is a devastating experience; one in ten of those targeted by sex crimes takes their own life.

We are used to working on tough social justice issues with Amnesty, but this campaign was a particular challenge. How to tackle such a sensitive issue? And not just raise awareness, but to create an ROI-driven fundraising campaign for TV?

Creativity through collaboration

Through collaborative workshops we devised the ‘BRAVE’ campaign. That’s a great word to describe the client team and their approach, and also those who speak out. As well as our drtv and digital work, Amnesty rolled out the campaign via email, video, press and PR.

Here you can see the finished DRTV appeal (we’ve added English subtitles!)

Of course, we gained permission to use these testimonies. And to protect people’s identity, the words were delivered by volunteers from the Amnesty team. They also secured support from Sunyoung Kim, a well-known celebrity who delivered a key part of the voice-over. The is powerful: ‘They want us silent.  They want us afraid. But let me make this clear…It is them, who should be afraid of us.’

Strength and empowerment

Amnesty phone strap

This was a message of strength and empowerment. To reinforce this, we offered viewers an ‘Amnesty Not Afraid’ phone-strap to demonstrate their feelings and their support.

The ‘BRAVE’ appeal showed great results compared to the previous campaign on the same TV channels with the same media budget, with ROI more than doubled (almost tripled).

Thank you to Amnesty Korea, and thank you to those who shared their stories for the greater good. To make the ‘BRAVE’ campaign took a lot of bravery from a lot of people.

Bio

Borie heads up DTV Korea. Borie and her team help NGOs and iNGO based in Korea get support from individual donors for good causes around Korea and the world.