Crushed But Okay
A strengths-based campaign to help teen boys build healthy relationships online.
In partnership with Alannah and Madeline Foundation
Yesterday
There is a cultural phenomena of young men handling rejection from young women poorly, causing harm to young people in the form of online abuse and unsolicited behaviours.
Our challenge was to decrease the likelihood of online harms of a sexualised nature by helping young men manage complex emotions around rejection better.
We worked with young people and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation to develop a campaign that built awareness, reframed failure, grew empathy and developed skills to positively express intimacy.
Today
Collaborating with 15-20 year old men and women, we devised a campaign and video series through consecutive co-design workshops and consultative sessions.
The participants became our creative advisors, guiding and informing every aspect of ‘Crushed But Okay’ from the branding to selecting influencers to react to real, relatable stories.
The brand and visual identity was selected as being the most effective to grab the attention and resonate with young men. The entire campaign takes a social-first approach to meet young men where they already are—Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.
Four micro-influencers were sourced and selected by our youth advisors to increase authenticity and virality of the video concepts.
Tomorrow
Crushed But Okay is a social-first campaign featuring young Aussie influencers reacting to real stories of online interactions between young men and women.
The goal was to reach 10,000 young people; we crushed that and reached 1,339,929 people in the first two months.
The series takes a strengths-based approach to help teen boys build healthy relationships online by giving them the tools to safely, ethically process emotions—like rejection—in their own language.
Developing and launching this campaign with the guidance and input of youth advisors meant automatic backing and buy-in from all those involved in promoting a great message— rejection happens, and it’s okay to feel bad about it, but here are some healthy ways you can reframe and cope with negative emotions you may be feeling.
The design and style of Crushed But Okay is but the well-dressed vessel for delivering much needed new tools and skills to young men and filling the knowledge gap. The content and themes discussed in the videos shift the onus off young women to be solely responsible for the feelings and responses of others; instead, they provide a safe space in a familiar, personal setting for young people to begin the conversation about relationships and rejection, the ambiguity and negative emotions they may experience, and how to cope and respond in healthy, constructive ways that don’t damage either party further.
Athalia Foo, Senior Content Strategist
Awards
Get in touch
Want to know more? Chat to Mary about impactful campaigns today.
Mary Nguyen
Business Director
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