Studies have shown that when people who stutter start rapping, their stutter disappears. Rapping makes it easier to control the speech movement from the brain. We created a free app that uses rap to help children speak more fluently. Rap provides guidance and rhythm, which really helps people who stutter. Many stutter therapies lack fun speech exercises. The ‘Get The Flow’ app combines speech exercises with something kids do like: Dutch hip hop.

We collaborated with famous Dutch rappers, songwriters and the Dutch Stutter Federation. For every exercise they wrote special rap lyrics that make use of tongue twisters and alliterations that are hard to pronounce for children who stutter. A custom-built timing system automatically recognises if kids don’t stutter. Kids can see their improvements and share their tracks with other stuttering kids.

And they can connect to practice together, so they feel they’re not alone in this.

We built the free app ‘Get The Flow’ that uses rap to help children who stutter speak more fluently. The app has a playful design and consists of multiple levels of difficulty. Special rap/stutter exercises were written that make use of tongue twisters, vowel, consonants and alliterations that are hard to pronounce for children who stutter. Children could connect to practice together and share their progress.

On their profile page they could see their improvements and share the results with their stutter coaches. The app was launched together with the Dutch Stutter Federation and stutter ambassador Miss Montreal, capturing national and international attention. The documentary we created was shared through Vodafone’s social channels, rap influencers and medical platforms. We supported the launch of the app/documentary with a seeding budget, but over 80% of reach (online, newspapers, TV, radio) was generated through earned media.

The campaign was launched only recently. At this stage we don’t yet have a complete overview of the results. However, after its launch ‘Get The Flow’ was featured in almost every major Dutch media title and picked up by many international media. It was featured on many big TV and radio shows and was even mentioned on The Voice.

The campaign already reached over 50% of the Dutch population (7+ million people) and got 86+ million media impressions.

Social media sentiment around the Vodafone initiative is almost 100% positive with great brand perception impact, already making the campaign a great success for the Vodafone brand. The app has already been downloaded by 30% of all stuttering children and has helped thousands to improve their speech skills, creating a big impact on their social environment. And Get The Flow is now used by 70 stutter official practices all across the Netherlands.