WHATSUP; HERE FOR YOU (team 34 school assignment)

Bullying has always been prevalent yet under-explored in Singapore and though, the government bodies, specifically the Ministry of Education, has taken steps to counter the rising issue, there has not been any improvement seen in the existence of bullying amongst students. In a 2017 study reported by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we see Singapore taking on the third position as the highest rate of bullying globally. We have found that students who are victims of bullying remain quiet due to peer pressure and the fear of the consequences that may arise when they speak up.

We find that the best solution to bullying would be for victims to speak to a parental figure. However, this is not what is happening. Therefore, we have come up with a solution on creating a communication channel for bullied students to speak up to an Artificial Intelligent Chat bot that would efficiently provide advice and help to communicate when the student is distressed to their parents. This allows both the students and parents to open up conversations on bullying.

In this report, we will speak on how we have developed our project narrative, the key insights pertaining to the issue of bullying as well as the evidence to support our claims. We will also speak on how we used our findings to get on the drawing board and formulate our idea. We have also included how we formed our creative ideation and further developed it when we received feedback from the other teams. The feedback is also included in the report to showcase how it brought us back to the drawing board to make changes that would benefit our idea greatly.

Identified Problem

Based on a study by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Singapore is currently at third position for the highest rate of bullying globally. Furthermore, 2 out of 5 students are bullied twice every month in Primary Schools (Barr, 2018).

Key Insights

Singaporeans have a cultural trait of being reluctant to speak up or express themselves.

Evidence

In a survey done by CNA Lifestyle, only 3% out of 353 students admitted to confiding in an adult after being bullied. Of that, 60% informed their parents and 31% informed their teachers. According to a survey done by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) in 2017, victims of bullying tend to withdraw themselves from family and friends and preferred to be left alone and prefer to keep their problems enclosed with themselves.

Opportunity Presented

Bullying has always been a pressing and prevalent issue in Singapore. With relevant research and information, we hope to reach out and try to put an end to it. Efforts have been implemented by schools and government bodies but have been seemingly underwhelming in putting out bullying. This is most likely due to the lack of understanding of the target audience. With our extensive research on our target audience through journals, interviews, surveys and other methods, we hope to learn the behaviours of our target audience and work with the optimum way to reach out to them.

National Report of Singtel shows us that, 8 to 12-year-old children predominantly use “WhatsApp”. As the “Most Used Social Media Websites and Applications”, it is at 63% in Singapore, beating the international average. Hence, we find that “Whatsapp” will be the best medium to utilise in pushing out our initiative.

Communication Strategy

Introducing an Artificial Intelligence chatbot confidant for victims to help them express and overcome bullying. WhatsUp pledges to be the light powering through your darkest days.

Campaign Idea

Our campaign idea is titled- WhatsUp, Here for you.

WhatsUp is a built-in feature within WhatsApp, whereby target audience have to enable it in order to patron it. This feature is created where our target audience will be drawn towards it with its unique function and animations.

Campaign collaterals also consist of posters and instagram advertisement videos. Posters will be strategically placed in out-of-home locations such as school canteens and bus-stops where our target audience frequent. We want the optimum location to garner awareness of this initiative. Instagram story advertisements will also run for 20-seconds, to target parents of these children and inform them about this feature.

Creative Ideation

Users aged 7 to 12 will be able to access this function. As long as the individual has the Whatsapp application, this feature will be showcased on the panel. To enable it, they will have to key in details and their parents telephone number for age verification.

Upon enabling this feature, they can then select from a range of Disney and Marvel characters of their preference. They then will be able to communicate with this animation, who will embody the tone of the actual character with the help of thematic backgrounds, catch phrases/words depicted from movies/shows.

This will push them to feel comfortable, allowing them to open up. As the conversation continues, the character will prompt questions such as, “How was your day” or general questions on the child's well-being. When the child uses words such as “bullied”, “sad” or other concerning words/phrases, parents will then be sent a message. The message will carry an explanation of what this feature is, the purpose and that their child has shown symptoms of distress. It will prompt the parents, and encourage them to approach their kids in confidence to help them open up. This will be our unique selling point, whereby this application is a two-way street.

What we aim to do is to give an avenue for children to speak to someone and to give them advice on how they can help themselves through a vessel, which is the character. The parents will also play a crucial role in helping the children without disclosing the prompts of the application.