Over the past two years the likes of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the US congressional hearings on social media have opened the eyes of many to how digital media and the big data economy can be used to manipulate. This year’s winning and shortlisted work explores how we might shift the power and work digital platforms in order to educate, protect cultural heritage, and solve real world problems, while intersecting niche audiences in their digital neighbourhoods.

An interdisciplinary and multifaceted crossover culture has emerged, with work taking cues from the world of gaming and using smart and intuitive technology such as AI, AR and VR to apply meta concepts to the world of design and advertising. There are ads within ads within ads, video games that educate and other interventions where digital ploys are placed in new contexts. Multiple crossovers of platforms and brands have emerged as collaborative ecosystems are forged.

This creative work used an interdisciplinary approach to facilitate learning and combat the cultural erasure caused by war in countries such as Afghanistan and Syria. Originally scoped as a print campaign, the decision to take a digital approach helped connect the project to its intended audience. By using a gaming platform, it engaged a younger generation with lost history.

Holly Fraser, Director of Content and Editor-in-chief at WePresent said: “History Blocks is a tool bridging past and future, using entertainment to educate a new generation about the global culture that existed before them. Work like this is necessary today, and it will have a hugely positive impact on those that engage with it. That is the sign of important work that should be recognised.”

Also positioning a life-saving issue in the centre of a target audience’s digital niche, LoFi Beats Suicide by McCann London for Vice UK sought to address student mental health. During exam season one in five students have suicidal thoughts, and yet most do not seek help. The campaign hijacked a continuous, 24-hour live Youtube stream popular with students, who flock there for lo-fi hip-hop beats to study or relax to, and also to share feelings of stress, anxiety, loneliness and depression.

For over two years this stream showed a seemingly endless loop of an anime girl character studying with the ambient beats playing in the background, but this intervention stopped the loop after 809 days and showed her breaking down. The video achieved two million views and 19% of viewers clicked through to helplines provided, meaning nearly one in five were referred to expert help. By using a niche but relevant stream to access a specific target audience this work was able to access a uniquely vulnerable demographic and signpost them towards help.

Leveraging the challenges within the gaming world, the brand launched the #StevenageChallenge, inviting gamers around the world to play with Stevenage and sign the best players to the team in return for Burger King rewards. One of the smallest teams in English league football became one of the most visible in the gaming world, and so did its sponsor. This crafty approach sidestepped a hefty media spend while putting the logo on the backs of some of the world’s most recognisable players – digitally, at least.

Speaking to D&AD earlier this year, Billy Seabrook, Global CEO for IBM iX said:
“There’s this fundamental concept of esports inspiring real sports in order to attract a younger audience and in this case it’s so uniquely on brand to do this because of the digital nature of the sport itself.”

While spirited tactics such as this were implemented to stoke the flames of ongoing brand rivalries, we also saw creative work where brands came together in collaboration. adam&eveDDB took this approach on more than one occasion. 

Ad-within-an-ad-within-an-ad for Samsung does exactly what the title suggests. A social film became the world’s first ad-within-an-ad-within-an-ad, as one piece of content acted as an advert for the Samsung QLED TV, Netflix and Ryan Reynolds’ Aviation Gin, which also included the casting of the ‘Peloton wife’, who had herself reached meme status on social media. This self-aware and savvy method was specifically created for the meta world of the internet meme and merged three ads into one.

The notion of hacking the system was executed in a humorous fashion in The Punishing Signal by agency FCB India for the Mumbai Police department. 70% of noise pollution on Mumbai’s roads is due to excessive honking of car horns, making it the honking capital of the world, with noise reaching dangerous levels. This campaign hacked a traffic light system in a busy area of the city and put a sign up stating ‘honk more, wait more’. When cars honked the light would remain red for longer as punishment for their impatience. Tweeted by the Mumbai Police, it soon became the most liked and shared topic in India and went viral, being picked up by global news outlets.

With zero paid media, this campaign effectively reduced noise levels and effected real behavioural change. Speaking to D&AD earlier this year, Shula Sinclair, Global Head of Strategy at Spark Foundry, said: “They got right into the heart of the problem in a very direct way and it’s such a simple idea, there was no innovation that made it possible it was just creative thinking.”

In the narrow and niche neighbourhoods of the internet, specific audiences can be reached with content that engages them on their own terms. Meanwhile, the self-referential grammar of memes and meta concepts in these spaces present playful and engaging ways to invite interaction with your message. On the internet and beyond, work that challenges the social rules of engagement and looks for alternative ways to operate within an established system can feel exhilarating and almost rebellious.

Theme Report by Neighbourhood, commissioned and edited by D&AD for the 2020 D&AD digital Annual.