| Title | TRUTH & LOOT |
| Brand | YOURTOWN |
| Product / Service | KID'S HELPLINE |
| Category | E05. Influencer / Talent |
| Entrant | M&C SAATCHI Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
| Idea Creation | M&C SAATCHI Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
| Media Placement | WAVEMAKER Brisbane, AUSTRALIA |
| Production | SHOWDOWN Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Can Blackley | M&C Saatchi | Chief Creative Officer |
| Mandie van der Merwe | M&C Saatchi | Executive Creative Director |
| Avish Gordhan | M&C Saatchi | Executive Creative Director |
| Michael Harris | M&C Saatchi | Senior Copywriter |
| Neil Walshe | M&C Saatchi | Senior Art Director |
| Lucy Morgan | M&C Saatchi | Senior Copywriter |
| Nicole Yeoman | M&C Saatchi | Senior Art Director |
| Alice Schofield | M&C Saatchi | Integrated Designer |
| Bronwyn Galvin | M&C Saatchi | Senior Strategy Director |
| Isabelle Zaccharia | M&C Saatchi | Strategist |
| Vanessa Boueyres | M&C Saatchi | Group Head |
| Laura Jones | M&C Saatchi | Senior Account Director |
| Kimberley Wright | M&C Saatchi | Account Manager |
| Loren August | M&C Saatchi | Head of Broadcast |
| Angela Byrnes | M&C Saatchi | Senior Integrated Producer |
| Tracey Fawcett | Wavemaker | Group Business Director |
| Titi Ngoc Mai Tran | Wavemaker | Digital & Social Associate Manager |
| Nick Gorshenin | Showdown | Client Services Director |
| Annika Kemp | Showdown | Advertising & Partnerships Manager |
| Kae McKenzie | Showdown | Content Executive |
| Tracey Gillinder | yourtown (Kids Helpline) | Head of Marketing and Fundraising |
| Craig Scarr | yourtown (Kids Helpline) | National Marketing Manager |
| Mark Anthony | yourtown (Kids Helpline) | Brand and Campaign Team Leader |
In 2019, 60% of all contacts to Kids Helpline were with regards to mental health issues and thoughts of suicide. Despite the increased coverage and awareness around mental health, there still remains a stigma and confusion around the topic. However, research shows that talking (about anything) helps avoid getting to this serious stage. The challenge is getting teens to talk.
Gaming is a passion point for teen males, with over 90% playing games online. In particular, Fortnite is a world-wide phenomenon with a massive cult following of male teens. Gaming has however evolved; Gaming has become a place not only to play, but also a place to watch gamers, and a place for organic conversation – albeit a chat with lots of emojis! So we turned one of the world’s largest gaming platforms, Twitch, into a social platform for mental health.
We teamed up with 4 Aussie gaming influencers to host “Truth n Loot” - a 4-week series of live gaming streams where they talked about their mental health experiences – all while battling live in the most successful game ever created: Fortnite. As the games were played out, teens, distracted by the game and candid conversation, opened up and chatted about their own personal struggles on the chat stream. And when things became too serious, Kids Helpline counsellors stepped in to provide a supporting and reassuring ear. By turning the gaming platform into a social platform we engaged with teens in an unthreatening manner, and made them realise how easy it was to just open up and talk.
With a media budget of just $135k, Truth n Loot delivered: • +26M impressions across platforms • Reached a combined 1.82m people – of this, 780k were young males • 100,000 clicks The Live Streams delivered an average brand exposure (average minutes streamed per user) of 6-7 minutes. However, the true success was in the following: • Many ‘truths’ were shared in the +6,000 unique chats in the live streams. These ‘truths’ were real, raw and personal, • Of the average 9,000 unique views, an incredible 75% engaged in the live chat, • Kids Helpline saw an increase in live traffic on the days of the live streams, with traffic from the 18-24 year old audience rising by 100% compared to STLY • Kids Helpline saw a 60% increase in web-traffic from males (vs 31% increase in females) the days of the live streams.