Things happen everywhere - silently, beneath the surface, and within. Even in the stable. Hear what’s not being said is a story about the lonely inner turmoil experienced when subjected to bullying, harassment, or exclusion. It’s a painful visualization of the consequences of today’s culture of silence within the equestrian sport.
The campaign aimed to resonate with both young people and adults, sparking emotions that deepen the understanding and highlight the importance of listening — even to the subtle signals. Ultimately, the goal was to inspire meaningful action in order to put an end to the toxic silent culture within the equestrian sport.
One of the greatest challenges to achieve this behavioral change was helping adults recognize the gravity of a situation that, on the surface, might seem insignificant, but feels like life or death to the person experiencing it. This highlights the critical importance of truly understanding what isn’t being said — to ultimately read between the lines.
The pressure in the chest, the fading sounds, the frantic struggle for breath, and the overwhelming wave of emotions – a state of mind where you leave the actual situation and retreat into your own world. While few have actually experienced drowning, the sensation is something many can relate to, both mentally and physically. By pushing these feelings to the extreme, we use the metaphor of drowning as a powerful storytelling technique that grips the viewer, making it impossible to ignore. This compels them to act, ensuring that no one drowns in silence.
The storytelling was partly driven by the soundscape, which immerses the viewer in discomfort and creates a sense of growing distance, while still remaining in the same setting. We intentionally emphasized atmosphere over dialogue to make the story more relatable and to foster discussion and reflection for educational purposes. To captivate the audience, we used a vertigo effect combined with a dynamic shift in the lighting. The stark contrast between the warm camaraderie in the stable and the cold, solitary reality draws viewers beneath the surface and into an emotional world. This effect is further enhanced by water reflections and striking color contrasts.Every detail was crucial to the storytelling. Using the metaphor of drowning allowed us to illustrate the contrast between how things appear on the surface and what is truly happening inside, helping people recognize that solving this issue requires actually listening to what’s not being said.
Due to the fact that The Swedish Equestrian Federation is a non-profit organization, we had a small production budget of $9800 (100,000 SEK) to create this film.
The campaign was launched digitally on YouTube and, despite a very limited media budget of $3900 (40,000 SEK), resulted in over two million views and a 1120% increase in click-through rate to the Swedish Equestrian Federation's educational portal.
The average click-through rate for YouTube campaigns is 0.65%, but we achieved an impressive 3.05%. For the Swedish Equestrian Federation, this is a marked improvement over the historical average rate of 0.25%. We also exceeded the benchmark for cost-per-click. While the average is 5 SEK, we managed to achieve 0.57 SEK per click – far below the previous average for the Swedish Equestrian Federation, which was 21.43 SEK per click.
This is the Federation's most successful and effective campaign to date. In addition to the significant engagement directly following the advertisements, the campaign has sparked conversations about the culture of silence within the equestrian community, further proving that it has made a real impact. We didn’t just reach our target audience — we moved them to take action.
