To counter online hate and encourage people to do their thing without letting negative comments get to them, we created a fictional film imagining Van Gogh as an aspiring artist today, having to deal with cyberbullying. The film is a short psychological thriller that builds on the inner tension of Van Gogh, spiraling into insanity as the hate comments pile up in his inbox. We set out to create a compelling story that people could relate to, so we decided on film as the best medium to engage our audience and captivate their attention.

With people spending more time online during the pandemic, cyberbullying has increased exponentially. A brand study (Unlock for ING, Oct. 2021) revealed that this issue affects young adults and almost half of them have come to think of online aggression as part of everyday life.

ING, through its platform “Do Your Thing”, encourages people to follow their passion freely, fueled by the belief that the world only gets you once. But when you follow your passion and expose yourself in online, it’s difficult to deal with online hate and not let it kill your thing.

We wanted to convey a powerful message that would make people understand that they are not alone in the struggle with online hate and a relatable story that they could share to stand up against online aggression.

Challenge: encourage people to mute online hate and share their passion with the world.

We started from the insight that if you let hate kill your thing, the world might miss out on the next great artist of the world.

To tap into ING’s Dutch heritage, we decided on Vincent Van Gogh, extremely controversial in his time, yet one of the greatest artists ever. We created a short fictional film that imagines the story of Van Gogh, had he been an aspiring artist in the context of social media today. The film starts off with Van Gogh enthusiastically painting and sharing his works on social media. Things take a downturn as he starts receiving hate comments and he spirals into insanity, culminating in the famous ear-cutting scene.

To show that the problem is real and can affect anybody, the comments featured in the film are real hateful comments received by Romanian artists, who took to social media to reveal their own battles with cyberbullying.

ING encourages people to do their thing freely, so we started from investigating what are the things that keep people from following their passion. A nationally representative brand study revealed that people hesitate to post about their life and hobbies online for fear of receiving hate and that aggression keeps them from being themselves online.

Although we chose to tell our story through art, our campaign didn’t only target artists, but all young adults (18-30) who have been victims or have witnessed their friends being victims of online hate. We wanted to raise awareness about cyberbullying and encourage people to stand up against this phenomenon.

To engage our audience and grab their attention, we decided to create a tension-packed film that would stand out from other cyberbullying educational campaigns, by tackling the issue of online hate from an unexpected angle that allows them to identify with our character’s story.

Our film imagined the pains of Van Gogh, had he lived today and had to struggle with online hate. We chose an artistic format that allowed our audience to get immersed in the story, identify with our character, and leave them wondering about today’s Van Goghs that will never fulfil their potential and leave their mark on the world. Although it is a single-character story, the story is packed with action, as Van Gogh pulls the viewer more into his inner world and pain.

The campaign ran for 3 weeks starting a few days before New Year’s, when people are open to reflection. We released our film through influencers and on our social channels (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram). For wider reach, the film was projected in cinemas and a 30s trailer ran on TV, directing people to our YouTube for the full story.

The #UnfollowHate film quickly became the all-time best performing content on our social media channels, with over 9,5 million online views and over 16 000 reactions. The content on influencers channels received over 40 000 reactions (shares, likes and comments), as people resonated with our message and wanted to add their voice to standing up against online hate.

After seeing our film, the best known pediatrician in Romania shared it and announced that our message had determined him to re-open his free advice Facebook page, closed a few days prior because of constant online harrassment.

Killa Fonic, one of the most controversial Romanian musicians, who was featured in our campaign, was inspired by our message and composed a song about his struggle with hate. Thus, an unexpected long tail of the campaign was released on Valentine’s Day, a co-created music video encouraging people to mute hate and follow love.