Making sense of school phone restrictions
BC Government Communications & Public Engagement
Phone Restrictions in School
Awareness Campaign
Phones are distracting. This understatement can be mildly amusing while you’re stretched out on the couch, but we now know it’s a big problem within classrooms and school grounds.
To date, researchers are guarded with their statistics but what is highly likely is that grade averages fall, social interactions drop and mental health declines when students use their phones in class.
This prompted the Government of BC to enact a province-wide restriction on phones in school beginning September, 2024.
Here Be Monsters needed to thread needle by connecting with students, parents and teachers, and, appeal to everyone's sense of reason.
Our creative insight was simple and irrefutable–school is easier without phone distractions.
The expression of this insight was to make worlds collide. We brought texts, emojis, social updates and game notifications into lessons to prove that school cannot make sense when phones are distracting students.
Importantly, we couldn’t make the teachers into the bad guys and we didn’t want to patronize the students.
The result was memorable campaign. The ads cut through the back-to-school clutter to deliver important messaging in a lighthearted way.
