Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
- Details
- Published on February 11, 2019 @ 08:22 pm
- Written by Arielle
Square Enix has teamed up with the Ad Council to feature Kingdom Hearts III in their anti-bullying campaign, seeking to inspire teens to become more inclusive and encourage others to think about how their behavior may be affecting others. The PSA featuring iconic Kingdom Hearts III shows that one's actions can impact a person's day, week, year, or entire life for better or worse, and that by being mindful of your actions, you can help improve the lives of so many people.
You can find a list of resources for anti-bullying measures on the Because of You website.
Learn more about the Because of You anti-bullying campaign by visiting the Because of You website and visit Ad Council's website to learn more about all of the various campaigns they are currently working on to improve society.
The Ad Council will work with Square Enix, Inc. to include KINGDOM HEARTS III characters in the anti-bullying campaign, Because of You, with the goal of inspiring teens to build a more inclusive and welcoming community. A new PSA featuring iconic characters from the KINGDOM HEARTS franchise encourages teens to consider the impact that their actions—positive or negative—can have on peers. The innovative program marks the first time the Ad Council has created a PSA with a video game publisher on a social good effort.
Featuring footage from the new KINGDOM HEARTS III video game, the PSA reiterates the message that because of you, someone’s day, year or life can change forever. With heroes and villains from Disney’s Frozen, Disney•Pixar’s Toy Story and more, the new creative is being distributed to media outlets nationwide and will run in donated time and space per the Ad Council’s model. PSA timing shortly follows the game’s anticipated launch on January 29, 2019.
“At its core, the KINGDOM HEARTS series is about the power of friendship and helping those in need in order to overcome darkness,” said Brendan Docherty, Sr. Manager, Product Marketing at Square Enix. “The KINGDOM HEARTS story is filled with characters overcoming trials and tribulations through friends helping and supporting each other in tough times. We thought these themes matched very well with the valuable life lesson of the Because of You campaign.”
Recent data shows that two-thirds of teens say they’ve experienced bullying, but most of them don’t think they contribute to the problem. This means many teens aren’t aware that their actions may be hurtful to others and they don’t always realize when they’ve crossed the line from joking around to saying something harmful. The Because of You campaign is a movement encouraging teens to reflect on the power of those words and actions.
“Because of You is all about how your actions, for better or for worse, can have a big impact on those around you,and helping teens think about how those decisions could affect others,” said Anastasia Goodstein, SVP of Digital Product Management at the Ad Council. “KINGDOM HEARTS III is one of the year’s biggest game releases, and we’re excited to see the game’s message of support and friendship reach millions of teens. It’s a great fit with our campaign’s idea that everyone should reflect on the power of their actions.”
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COMMENTS
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
Oh that's nice. It's cool that Kingdom Hearts is becoming mainstream enough to do anti bullying ads like this
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
Don't be a bully, or the darkness will gobble up your heart!
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
>kh anti-bullying campaign
>donald & goofy bully sora for 30 hours in kh3
>crying
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
>kh anti-bullying campaign
>donald & goofy bully sora for 30 hours in kh3
>crying
Was it really bullying though? Eh, maybe for Donald.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
>kh anti-bullying campaign
>donald & goofy bully sora for 30 hours in kh3
>crying
oh my god I can't stop laughing at this irony
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
I'm sure that Disney and SE's marketing divisions are genuinely concerned about this problem.
Trying to make this about individual action and a "do gooder" philosophy is just, mmm, not nearly good enough. But it sure is some fine exposure for mega conglomerates to pretend they have a theory of social justice guiding their company platforms.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
I'm sure that Disney and SE's marketing divisions are genuinely concerned about this problem.
Trying to make this about individual action and a "do gooder" philosophy is just, mmm, not nearly good enough. But it sure is some fine exposure for mega conglomerates to pretend they have a theory of social justice guiding their company platforms.
Oh, the corporation certainly doesn’t care. This is free exposure, and it is clear because everybody is so proud of this being the first time the Ad Council has worked with a video game company.
I don’t think that lessens the message and intent behind the campaign which is done with good intentions, though. We shouldn’t make it about SE or Disney’s false sense of civic duty (no multimillion or billion dollar corporation will ever do anything that is genuine without it involving a sizable donation of their hoarded wealth that can’t be earned back easily).
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
>kh anti-bullying campaign
>donald & goofy bully sora for 30 hours in kh3
>crying
AHAHAHAHAHAH
This was too real, I'm genuinely laughing.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
If only "later twerps" was as soft as bullying is today.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
"Later twerps"? "LATER TWERPS"?! Out of everything that gets said in this game, they decided to go with the Team Rocket level insult?
Why not something like Vanitas' "You insignificant speck" or....anything else?
Jeez, what a bunch of jackamules.
>kh anti-bullying campaign
>donald & goofy bully sora for 30 hours in kh3
>crying
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
"Later twerps"? "LATER TWERPS"?! Out of everything that gets said in this game, they decided to go with the Team Rocket level insult?
Why not something like Vanitas' "You insignificant speck" or....anything else?
Jeez, what a bunch of jackamules.
Bullying is a-okay when your friends are doing it to you, apparently.
Literally anything Larxene says is essentially an array of bullying and insults (alternatively, a special "service" some people pay good money for).
Like, if this ad was aimed at Twitter, "I didn't ask for your garbage opinion" works perfectly.
I didn't want to harp too much on the Donald and Goofy case because some people defend it claiming Sora was "okay with it"
1) Didn't seem like it a bunch of times
2) Even if the game tells you so, doesn't always mean the game is right. Just because they end every one of the scene with the collective sitcom laughter doesn't mean treating your friend like a brainded amoeba too dumb to even breathe is okay.
But it's not like it was intentional or with malice. The writing staff discovered modern dialogues, and they upped the sass to mildly offensive levels. Happens every couple Abridged series.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
I think this is a terrible idea honestly, and I hate to say that, but I believe all this is going to do is make KH seem like a joke to kids. Kingdom Hearts is a great series because it inspires people to believe in friendship and "light" over "darkness". It gives good role models to kids that desperately need them.
You aren't going to stop a bully with a kingdom hearts PSA
All this is going to do is undermine the message KH already delivers and probably make kids embarressed to play the game. There are other reasons too but I don't think this is the place for a full discussion of this.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
I think this is a terrible idea honestly, and I hate to say that, but I believe all this is going to do is make KH seem like a joke to kids. Kingdom Hearts is a great series because it inspires people to believe in friendship and "light" over "darkness". It gives good role models to kids that desperately need them.
You aren't going to stop a bully with a kingdom hearts PSA
All this is going to do is undermine the message KH already delivers and probably make kids embarressed to play the game. There are other reasons too but I don't think this is the place for a full discussion of this.
No kid is going to take this PSA seriously nor will it reflect poorly on KH. This likely won’t even make it into rotations at school, and this PSA will likely be forgotten in less than a week.
The target for this is teens, and they are smart enough to discern what is just an ad disguised and what isn’t.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
The PR team really is going balls to the walls pushing the roots of KH3 everywhere.
No offense to the speaker of the ad, but my 7 year old niece wasn't moved when watching that then again, if the demographic is for older kids, I'm pretty sure if they don't do it (bully) in person they passive aggressively bully others with their actual names or anonymously on the internet.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
People here are really underestimating how influential Kingdom Hearts is to kids. Just because your teenage or adult outlook on life can point the flaws with a synergy like this, it doesn't mean that it's entirely pointless in nature. Believe it or not, kids will be inspired by this.
On a somewhat unrelated note to make a point, I saw an article about a kid who refused to fight back to his bullies because he believed that is not the way of the Jedi. Sure, it's an apples and oranges comparison, but Kingdom Hearts makes kids happy and having it be linked with anti-bullying will make an impact. Not to us, but to them.
Re: Square Enix & the Ad Council team up for Kingdom Hearts 3 anti-bullying campaign
Had to check it out. Wow. The levels of jadedness and cynicism in these comments.
HOW DARE THIS GAME BE SOMEHOW INVOLVED IN AN ANTI-BULLYING CAMPAIGN.
I really don't see the harm in their involvement, but y'all are straight bullying the ad. Hahaha. [strike]Be best.[/strike]
Oracle Spockanort
February 11, 2019 @ 08:24 pmOffline