The ‘I am Greater’ campaign, launched in May 2021, encourages young people to be greater than violence by thinking about their hopes and aspirations for the future.

As part of this, young people are encouraged to be ‘active bystanders’, who act when they witness low-level negative behaviours, such as negative language, to stop violence before it starts and contribute to long-lasting attitudinal and behaviour change.

The campaign was co-designed with young people in Greater Manchester and delivered by Hitch Marketing. Several insight and co-creation sessions were held to understand the barriers and drivers to being an active bystander and to co-create the campaign messages and look and feel.

Content created for the campaign included three videos showing fictional scenarios that highlighted the three bystander actions that can be taken – directly intervening, getting help, distracting – to diffuse negative situations, produced and filmed by EY3 Media. These, along with social media graphics, were posted across the relevant social media channels.

Creatives were promoted on Snapchat, Instagram and out of home advertising across the transport network. Creative had bespoke QR codes to access the ‘I am Greater’ campaign website which hosted further information about how to be an active bystander and featured blog content from experts. The website also housed content for teachers, in the form of downloadable school resources, and parents, in the form of informative videos.

Three murals were created in collaboration with a local mural artist ‘Oskar with a K’, and groups of young people aged 13-18 in Salford, Bury and Tameside. Over 70 young people joined workshops to learn more about the campaign and bystander theory, then added their own reasons for being greater to the murals they painted.

Watch this short video to learn more about how the murals were created: ‘I am greater’ campaign murals – YouTube

In a 4-week period, the campaign received 2,256,990 impressions in total and 5,000 clicks on content.

Young people said:

“They inspired me to be something in the future. She has a goal.”

“I liked it because it lets you know you don’t need to carry weapons you can be great at anything if you work hard.”

“After watching this, I wanted to try and do better for my community.”

The campaign has been shortlisted for a Prolific North Creative Award in the ‘creative for good’ category for social impact.

Article posted on: 28/06/2023 11:06am