Our creative idea focused on a simple premise: If we could find something funny to say about this serious topic – especially in a manner that would appeal to teenagers’ quirky sense of humour – then we could get their attention, and thus make our message heard.

So we set up our story with an engaging online video that is reminiscent of an old-school educational video, complete with a geeky adult host. After discussing the dangers of sending naked images, the video host suggests that instead, young boys should send a picture of a naked mole rat.

The headline reads: “Don’t Get Sextorted. Send A Naked Mole Rat.”

The video then shows the star of the campaign – a little-known African rodent, which is pink, hairless, and three to four inches in size – the ideal character to give boys something to giggle about and to eagerly share among friends.

Teen boys live on mobile and messaging platforms and are heavily engaged in meme culture, so we leveraged this behaviour in our campaign. We kicked things off with the Sextortion-Ed video and followed up with downloadable memes, gifs, stickers and a custom keyboard on the app store to get to our target right where they are.

PR was essential in managing sensitivities around the issue. We obtained buy-in from third-party child and law enforcement experts who provided supplemental interviews alongside our client. Dozens of interviews with A-list Canadian print, online and broadcast media were scheduled on launch day.

The campaign immediately struck a chord worldwide. From The New Yorker to Cosmopolitan, Mashable to The Times, police forces to online news sources like BuzzFeed and AJ+, everyone was talking about the naked mole rat. Even child protection services from Australia and New Zealand tweeted their own Naked Wombats and Naked Kiwis.

Tier 1: The campaign immediately struck a chord and ignited an international firestorm of coverage. From The New Yorker to Cosmopolitan, Mashable and The Times. Over 700 news stories appeared in 78 countries, yielding 1.8 billion global impressions.

Tier 2: The prime objective of getting beyond teens’ reluctance to address this touchy subject was achieved, given that social conversation about sextortion spiked 649%.

Tier 3: Overall awareness of the issue also increased across all demographics as more than half of all secondary schools in Canada made the toolkit a part of their sex ed ?program. Even child protection services from Australia and New Zealand tweeted their own Naked Wombats and Naked Kiwis.

Nothing can add more to the storytelling power of PR than a provocative meme that captures the imagination of an audience and then explodes virally via social media. Our naked mole rat meme did precisely that. Young boys everywhere shared the meme with great humour and excitement and helped spread awareness of the perils of Sextortion to a global audience.

The best way to prevent Sextortion is to simply make potential victims aware of it. But getting teenage boys to take notice and learn about the problem is a big challenge.

Firstly, teens don’t really want to talk about sex with adults. So we had to provide a way in. Secondly, young boys are inundated with messages about online safety. And since many of these warnings end up resorting to scare tactics, teens can become desensitized to such messaging.

To achieve all of our campaign goals and create a powerful impact, we took a very serious problem and flipped it on its head. We used humour and innuendo to appeal to teen boys and help break down the communication barriers around an embarrassing topic.

Research conducted by The Canadian Centre for Child Protection showed an 89% increase in Sextortion cases from 2015 to 2016. Sextortion occurs when users – mostly teenage boys as young as 13 – are duped into responding with compromising images to “come-ons” from online predators. After they send the images, unwitting respondents are subjected to blackmail by the online “Sextortionists.”

The CCCP wanted to create a broad-based awareness campaign that would connect with the elusive teen market and make young boys aware of the existence – and the implications – of this online peril.