CM

Youth wellbeing is under pressure, and research points to a clear link with social media. Not because social media are inherently bad, but because they’ve been designed to be so addictive that young people lose themselves in it for hours, at the expense of real social connections.

But how do you encourage young people to take better care of their mental and social wellbeing without wagging a moralising finger? A TikTok campaign from CM telling young people what to do probably wasn't going to cut it.

So, we did the opposite. Instead of directing a campaign at young people, we created something with them and for them. One solid plan, four pairs of brave shoes, and you've got Make it to Mark: a quest to Silicon Valley to ask Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg in person just how social his social media really are, after first stopping off at a string of Belgian politicians and experts.

The Boring Boys — neither actors nor influencers — are the heroes of this story. Four young people with the nerve to ask the questions everyone wants answered.

Print, digital and radio media picked up the story enthusiastically, without a single euro spent on paid media. That's what happens when a brand thinks like a creator rather than an advertiser.

The Boys shared their story on De Tafel van Tine, one of Flanders' most-watched talk shows. They reached 200,000 live viewers in prime time, with tens of thousands more through on-demand viewing and online snippets.

And the Boys made waves online, too. On Instagram and TikTok combined, we had an organic reach of nearly 400,000 views, more than 18,500 interactions, and a following growth of 1,542, with 18–24-year-olds and 25–34-year-olds as the largest groups. This confirms that the campaign delivered reach, engagement and community growth among an audience that's notoriously hard to reach.

Was it ambitious to try and speak to Mark Zuckerberg in person? Absolutely. But the scale of the problem demanded that kind of ambition. Social media algorithms shape what we see, how we feel and how young people relate to each other, without any real dialogue to counter that. And that needs to change.

So, did the Boys get to Zuck? Sadly not. On their final attempt, they made it as far as his driveway before being turned away by his private security. Still, they managed to put the debate about transparency, accountability and the impact of algorithms on young people firmly on the agenda. With an ad-averse audience, with stakeholders, and with policymakers.

We generated significant awareness among our young target audience precisely because the story didn't feel like a conventional campaign. The Boring Boys brought the topic into their own world, in their own language and their own formats. Short, fast and native where it needed to be. But this story also deserved time, nuance and depth.

That's why Make it to Mark also became a documentary, made by BoundBreakers. It premiered at the AB in Brussels, in the presence of politicians, experts, content creators, tastemakers and the Boring Boys themselves. The documentary captures the full journey: from the first conversations in Belgium to the search in San Francisco, from the Boys' personal doubts to the broader social debate behind it all.

And as a final cherry on top, Make it to Mark will also be available on VTM GO. Together with CM, we've also got a follow-up in the works. Because (spoiler alert!) neither the Boring Boys nor CM are done just yet.