McAfee

Most people are aware of the various threats of hacking. Yet we’ll still hop on a coffee shop’s Wi-Fi to check our bank balance or forget to look for the VeriSign mark before we “complete purchase” at an online retailer.  Human nature trends towards optimism.

A false sense of security

We discovered we could overcome this Optimism Bias by getting people to acknowledge that they were living with a false sense of security, since most digital threats are invisible and unpredictable by design. With this in mind, we developed McAfee’s ultimate proposition: We see what you can’t.

Underscoring the urgency

To make digital security real and urgent, we gave this multi-billion dollar industry a name:  H*Commerce. A term expansive enough to cover all categories of digital security, but specific enough that McAfee could own it.

The real stories of hackers and victims were far more compelling than any ad we could create, so we developed a full-length documentary featuring a victim of one of the largest and most elaborate email scams on record.

Creative at work

The film premiered in six bi-weekly webisodes on a dedicated site where visitors could view the film and learn about online safety and McAfee’s solutions. Social, OOH, display, and online videos on Forbes.com, Wired.com, and entertainment sites like Hulu drove people to the site.

It received over 6 million viral impressions, a market share increase of 66% in the first quarter, and an overall brand awareness increase of 150%.