Ad Campaign Uses Eerie Emoji to Protect Children From Online Sexual Abuse

In a ‘different’ take on cause marketing, Paris-based ad agency, Rosapark, has created a real-life emoji campaign aimed at warning parents of the dangers of online chatting for their children.

The weird and wacky move was put together for Innocence en Danger, an international nonprofit organization, devoted to the combat of sexual abuse of children.

Though the original campaign was initially intended for print advertising, the effort has caused such a stir (in a good way) that it has gone viral on social media sites such as Twitter. It is also featured on Facebook.

 

According to Jamie Standen, creative director at Rosapark, the idea behind the creative idea was to show the disturbing reality that could lie behind the fun emoji in a child’s chatbox. As the tagline on the ads question/ warn: “who’s really chatting online with your child?”

“When a predator makes contact with a child online, they will first try to gain the child’s trust. They might even try and pass themselves off as another child, and they will do this by speaking the same online language. As we know, emoji are a major part of our online language,” he says.

 

Given the emoji campaign’s good intentions, perhaps any negative comment on these eerie images should be kept to oneself? I know that the top tounge-out wifebeater-wearer image is enough to put me off of using emoticons for a while!