INTERVENTION: A new anti-bullying campaign is aimed at parents as well as children.
By Hannah Lerstad, News Writer
The Be More Than a Bystander campaign targets parents and the influence they have to stop bullying. It calls for parents to talk to their children about how to prevent bullying and offers options on how their children should react to others being bullied.
Sponsored by Advertising Council, a nonprofit organization, Be More Than a Bystander is a nationwide campaign launched with the assistance of stopbullying.gov, the Bully Project and dosomething.org. The campaign uses public service announcements as well as online and print advertisements to provide information and support for students who want to help end bullying.
The campaign proposes multiple approaches on how parents can teach their children. Options such as helping the bullied student get away, telling a trusted adult or not becoming part of an audience can often put an end to bullying. It also calls for parents to set a good example for their children.
Be More Than a Bystander has been gaining popularity. Facebook has a page dedicated to the campaign called Stop Bullying: Speak Up, which has more than one million likes and over 135,000 pledges. Anderson Cooper did a television spot supporting Stop Bullying: Speak Up on CNN. In addition, AOL agreed to give anti-bullying advertising space on its home page and its sign-in page. The campaign has even received free advertising space in magazines like Parenting and The Food Network, as well as in some newspapers.
Online video advertisements also draw attention to Be More Than a Bystander. One video, taken undercover on a school bus, features a boy being verbally abused and throttled. The video ends with the words, “Teach your kids how to be more than a bystander.”
Joe Cianciotto, producer of the advertising agency DDB New York, said that the advertisements have a “message that is uncomfortable and disconcerting.” Cianciotto also “wanted to remind parents that what their kids are witnessing is serious, and it can have devastating effects.”
The campaign calls for parents to take a stand against bullying by teaching their children intervention.