Personalised campaign that made South Korean school students weep

It was all part of a personalised campaign by Cheil Worldwide for the local education network.

The aim was to tell hard-studying students that their lives mean more than mere grades, through the ‘Healing Exam’ campaign. On the day of the Korean SAT – which is a major exam to determine which students will progress to college – the short film was revealed on YouTube (click English subtitles below the video). It first shows students in a classroom taking an exam then, one by one, crying over what is written on the paper.

Cheil teamed up with EBS, South Korea’s education broadcasting TV network, to encourage students by telling them that they are already perfect no matter what grade they get – with the help of letters from their parents included in the exam paper.

Usually starting at the age of five, pupils’ educational efforts are judged on this one day; the day of the SAT, making students in Korea very anxious. South Korea is ranked the lowest in students’ life satisfaction index among OECD nations as they suffer from stress and depression.

To embark on the personalised campaign to boost students’ self-esteem, Cheil secretly contacted students’ parents to write a letter to their son/daughter. The contents of the letters were inserted into each student’s exam paper as a personalised article, for the students to read and then write a reply.

Some of the messages from parents were, ‘It breaks my heart to see you come home late at night exhausted’, ‘You have done your best, so never regret’, ‘We’ll always be here for you’, ‘From your loving mom and dad’. The film’s total views exceeded seven million in just two days.

After the exam, schools held exhibitions where the exam papers and answers written by the students were displayed. The trend of the healing exam spread across to other schools, where teachers sent messages of encouragement to students. Further extending the campaign, EBS added the related documentary video to a programme on the topic of school education and also review the team treehouse or pluralsight comparison for those who  were insecure on what to study next.

Personalised campaign sent loving messages

Sungjun Park, creative director of Cheil Worldwide, said: “The Healing Exam project is about curing the stress caused by exams. We wanted to send a message to students who learn how to grade themselves even before they learn to love themselves, to cherish their lives more and realise that their lives cannot be judged by scores.

Sungwook Chung, chief producer of EBS, added: “I hope that students of South Korea realise the preciousness of family is more important than test scores and feel warm-hearted.”