Cheil Scoops Two Grands for Gaming at Clio Entertainments Awards

Cheil Pengtai Beijing x Cheil Hong Kong has won eight awards, including two Grands, at the Clio Entertainment awards for its groundbreaking The Cost of Bullying campaign for Samsung. The agency also won two awards for its innovative Help Sticker work for broadcaster JTBC. It is the first time the agency has been shortlisted for the Entertainment awards.

The Cost of Bullying campaign won the Grands for Gaming Innovation and Gaming Social Good category. It also won three Golds in the Gaming category for Digital/Mobile, Digital/Mobile & Social Media Craft and Experiential, and Events across the gaming categories. The agency also scooped a Silver in Gaming for Partnerships & Collaboration.

The campaign, which ran in China, was designed to tackle the rising level of online abuse and bullying faced by young Chinese gamers. Over recent years, abuse has been a significant social problem causing rising mental health issues among young people and has already had tragic consequences for some.

As part of Samsung's ongoing social responsibility work, the idea is simple. Bullies must understand that their actions have a cost. Working with the creators of Magic Quest, China's most popular game, the Cheil team used abusive language detection technology to identify bullies. It then let them know that the price of any in-game purchases had been increased because of their behaviour. The price increased every time an incident was recorded.

This culturally important work resulted in a 40% decrease in reports of bullying for the two weeks it ran. It has also placed Samsung at the heart of the conversation around online abuse and how to support young gamers better. Building on the brand's successful Anti-bullying skin for Fortnite in Brazil.

Cheil also won Gold and Silver in the television category for its innovative work with broadcaster JTBC on Help Sticker. With brand logos banned from Korean TV shows, they must be covered using "ugly" black stickers. The Cheil team saw this sticker as an opportunity to turn something that was always on-screen into something useful, 'Help Sticker' was created to aid victims of abuse.

The colourful stickers cover the words most toxic to abuse victims by promoting relevant helpline numbers. In addition, Help Sticker was featured in JTBC's five main TV shows, which, based on broadcast ratings, obtained 2.3 billion views. Paper versions of the stickers also went out in magazines, including Elle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire, with 28,000 copies distributed.

Following the release of the campaign film, the number of calls to the woman's emergency helpline increased by 20% on the previous year.

Malcolm Poynton, global chief creative officer at Cheil Worldwide, commented: "Given the significance of gaming today, we're excited to be leading the way for brands in this space. In both, 'The Cost of Bullying' and #HelpSticker we're proud to be collaborating with our clients to impact society positively."