In advertising, media is usually about reaching your target, plus some extra reach. Here, if we missed our target, we would put it in danger…We kept our operation secret until the last minute. We selected only influencers kids trust and worked with them on short lived formats, as Instagram stories or Twitch stream.

We also transformed Fortnite as a media. By hacking Fortnite communication system, we would reach and interact with kids, as they feel comfortable.

Mass media were only asked to reveal the avatar after his mission complete, to give him visibility and to make the government react.

Younger generations have never been so connected. However, it remains hard to reach them and harder for them to speak up for revealing potential abuses. While familial violence has dramatically increased in 2020, Enfant Bleu, a French charity, needed to find a solution for having an easier way to reach these kids. With schools closed, our main alert system was short-circuited, as a protection association usually rely on teachers for detecting cases of abused children. Our challenge was to create a new channel for children to free their speech. To do so, we thought about going where they feel confident and spend their time, within video games.

We created the first in-game Fortnite character whose mission was not to win the game but to listen to abused children in order to save them. The avatar was played by members of the association to discuss with other young players and detect cases of abuses using the in-game chat system. The whole operation should be “undercover”, as if abusive parents were informed about the avatar, they could ban the game. This way we also should avoid traditional mainstream media, and focus on micro-influencers to reach a very specific target.

Even if Fortnite is a social space, you need some media to reveal your presence in the game to the maximum number of players. To be sure we avoid parents and potential torturers, we used talents from generation Y and Z, knew from Twitch, Instagram or TikTok. These platforms were particularly adapted thanks to short-lived formats proposed, as Instagram stories or Twitch stream. All our media touch points were ephemeral. Impossible to get back on the case. We developed a media plan that was meant to disappear. It was also designed to be non-expensive, as Enfant Bleu is a charity without major funding.

After one month of interaction, the avatar was disconnected before being made public. This way we both protected kids who added us, and used mass media to make the videogame potential for reaching and helping abused kids.

The plan was divided in two steps

First, we partnered up with streamers and esport teams, the perfect ambassadors for reaching youngsters. These talents are powerful on Twitch, so we developed specific creative assets to reveal the avatar during livestream sessions. We also developed assets for Instagram stories. Sometimes, fans shared the initiative on their own social media, we let them do if it was short-lived content but we had to ask them to delete their publications if it was a tweet or in their Instagram feed.

Secondly, we worked with popular young talents in order to reach more young people. We wanted to reach as much as possible our target to activate the word of mouth effect.

After the reveal, we set up a PR strategy to make the character public and opened a national debate around video games and their power to help kids.

While our Fortnite character was online, we received 1 200 friend requests from kids. 30% of these requests were related to dangerous situations asking for urgent treatments.

But for an association, an important KPI was also the capacity to raise visibility of the cause defended in mainstream media and in public conversation. Undercover Avatar achieved to generate more than 700 million media impressions thanks to press coverage.

Impact was so strong that French government through the competent authorities decided to set up a specific task force gathering gaming publishers, French Justice and French Police in order to work on solutions to turn video games into a new way to identify players who are abused kids. Even French Police mentioned that this campaign was recognized by their US colleagues from FBI.

Enfant Bleu association is now one of the top social actors. In 2020 they received +30% of donations vs 2019.