The darkness behind the curtain

Advancements in technology have significantly increased the threat of child sex abuse and exploitation, with most of it now occurring online. And although the means of engaging in child sexual abuse has evolved, it seems that attitudes haven’t altered as much as we would like to believe. 

Our campaign for Police Scotland sought to fill a critical gap, not covered by previous online child sexual abuse campaigns, by addressing the root causes of offending behaviour while also creating an empathetic pathway to rehabilitation. This innovative approach combined research-driven insights, strategic communication, and creative storytelling to address a pressing societal issue in a highly impactful way. Understanding offenders and what leads them to commit their crimes was key to designing our strategy. 

Our creative idea was to utilise a striking visual metaphor to reflect the dark reality of the perpetrator’s actions. We needed our audience to understand that just by looking at sexual child images online, they were putting themselves at huge risk of being publicly exposed. That required a delicate balance to make them stop and think about their actions without completely demonising them.