Behind-the-scenes with EE on its ‘real but tough’ portrayal of online safety for kids

The story then circles back to that same moment of handover, this time with EE’s Safer Sim. The swirling anxieties give way to calm as we see children confidently exploring their world, happy, connected and safe among friends.

As the new school year begins across the country, the ad arrives at a crucial moment, when conversations around digital safety are more urgent than ever. Its release follows the highly acclaimed and strikingly relevant TV show Adolescence, which confronted every parent’s worst nightmare head-on and showed a harrowing portrayal of the realities of social media for young kids.

Before the creative direction for the ad was set, EE’s brand and demand generation director, Kelly Engstrom and her team surveyed 2,000 parents in the UK, uncovering their concerns about giving their children access to phones. The stats showed that just over half (52%) feel equipped to manage their child’s smartphone and social media use, despite 43% planning to buy them a handset this August.

When it comes to online safety, kids’ top fears include being scammed (51%), bullied (50%) or exposed to adult content (48%). Parents, however, are most worried about the latter; 68% cite exposure to pornography as their biggest concern. Unsurprisingly, nine out of 10 parents now say features such as adult content filters (89%) and scam protection (91%) are non-negotiable when choosing a phone plan for their child.

“We know that growing up with phones is hard and, often, parents don’t know what the right call to make is on kids and smartphones,” Engstrom explains to The Drum. “At the same time, it’s often seen as a rite of passage for kids to get a new phone and the start of the new school year sees a whole new generation of young people getting one. This campaign isn’t about making that moment seem scary; in fact, it’s the opposite. We want to make sure it’s the best experience for both parents and their kids and that they feel supported to make the right decision for them and their family.”

Additionally, EE created a youth council for the brand, which was established to put the perspectives of young people at the heart of its offerings. The council is comprised of young people at secondary school who meet regularly to debate safe phone use for young people, with their insights helping to inform EE’s products, propositions and guidance.

Engstrom adds that she is “proud” of the fact EE places huge importance on portraying “real stories, even when they are tough ones.”

“Of course, we believe smartphones can bring great benefit in keeping people connected, but we also know that they can bring some very real dangers, especially for children. We take that responsibility very seriously and want to do our bit to find ways to solve the issue.”

The ad strikes a clever balance between being informative for parents and relatable for young people. On set, The Drum observed how meticulously the creative directors worked to ensure authenticity, particularly in scenes such as the bathroom sequence, where everything from how the kids held their phones to how they interacted with each other was carefully crafted to feel real.

“Show the real world, show stories and moments that you relate to, that you can see yourself and your kids in,” is how Ben Mooge, Publicis Groupe’s chief creative officer, describes the brief from EE.

For the campaign, the team anchored the pivotal ‘first phone’ moment in the familiar ritual of the first day of the school year: those doorstep photos, in crisp uniforms, full of promise and possibility. “It is a universal moment of optimism, of beginnings and possibilities,” Mooge explains.

“Then we introduce a mobile phone into that world and a glimpse into the potential damage for the unprepared teens,” he continues. “We see a glimpse of a future path of the worst of what kids are exposed to: body image, fomo, paranoia, messaging pile-ons and everything in between.”

Many of the young actors were street-cast in Glasgow, with school scenes filmed at Holyrood High School while students were on summer break. During the shoot, stills for out-of-home spots were captured in the school’s gym hall. To help the cast get into the right headspace, the director blasted tracks from Limp Bizkit and System of a Down, setting the tone and creating an atmosphere where everyone looked like they were genuinely having a great time.

Mooge says it was ‘crucial’ to film in a school. “The most important thing with young talent, with any talent, is to make them feel comfortable, to be themselves, to be normal and unaffected by the camera,” he says. “So, it doesn’t get any more natural an environment than school. I’d like to think that we share an aesthetic of what modern British teenagers look and feel like.”

One of the most eye-opening insights for the creative team during the process was the stark contrast in how young girls and boys experience social media. According to Saatchi & Saatchi’s Rory Peyton-Jones, the majority of girls feel an overwhelming pressure to keep up, whether it’s staying on top of TikTok trends, replying instantly, or constantly posting.

“They also feel the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ thing that parents feel, lots of girls would rather TikTok didn’t exist, but, since it does, they have to participate.”

Boys, by contrast, tend to be more relaxed online, facing less social pressure to conform. “But if they do get sucked into the darker content, then it can get very extreme. The girl’s story in the film is more universal, but the boy’s story is a bit darker and more overlooked by society.”

It’s a huge subject for EE to undertake, but a necessary one. “There’s nothing more important than this topic in our society right now,” adds Peyton-Jones. “There’s a real possibility that we won’t feel the consequences of acting or not acting on this until it’s too late.”