2014 winner: NSPCC, Not for Profit - case study

The alarming statistics are that a third of children who are sexually abused by an adult report that they did not tell anybody else about it at the time. Yet parental conversations with children at a young age about what constitutes abuse are proven to help prevent these things from happening in the first place. The problem is that this is a conversation that no parent wants to have with their child.

The communications solution that we created for the NSPCC overturned the ‘shock’ tactics of old, instead looking to encourage and empower parents to talk to their children about this crucial subject.

Our solution was the ‘Underwear Rule’.

This simple, child-friendly guide, helped parents explain to children that their body belongs to them by talking PANTS.

PANTS is an acrostic based script that armed parents with language their children could understand. It spoke to them in a straightforward way that wasn’t shocking or frightening.

We introduced PANTS through a two-pronged media approach - as a catalyst for new conversations in broadcast media, and to ladder up existing parental topics through online forums. As a result, we prompted real action. 94% of parents now agree that it’s their responsibility to talk to their children about sexual abuse, and over half of all parents in the UK have subsequently initiated ‘that’ conversation with their child.

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