Alberta holds anti-bullying contest
By Adnews Staff
The Government of Alberta has begun a new anti-bullying campaign aimed at teenagers. During the initiative, called “Stand Up and Stop Bullying,” teens aged 13 to 18 will be invited to submit two-minute digital videos offering positive solutions to bullying. Two grand prize winners will each receive $600 gift certificates from Best Buy. Two runners-up will receive $150 gift certificates. In addition, the four winning videos will air on Citytv. The contest began on Sept. 10 with a 30-second co-branded commercial on Citytv directing viewers to the Citytv.com website for information about the contest. Thirty-second bullying awareness ads are also airing on CTV, Citytv and Access TV. These will run until mid-November. Advertising resembling classified ads will run in urban weekly publications including Fast Forward and See. The campaign and contest were developed by MacLaren McCann Calgary. “Because the most influential group for teens is other teens, our creative team decided to incorporate a do-it-yourself component into this next phase of the campaign so that teens could communicate directly to each other about the impact that bullying has had on their lives,” said Ric Fedyna, general manager of the agency. “Using a digital format to expose the issue of bullying prevention is particularly relevant to this group.” The contest is part of a three-year anti-bullying program by the provincial government.