RE:SCAM

TitleRE:SCAM
BrandNETSAFE
Product / ServiceCYBER SECURITY
CategoryB01. UX and Journey Design
EntrantDDB NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Idea Creation DDB NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
PR DDB NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
PR 2 MANGO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Production DDB NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Additional Company NETSAFE Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Credits

Name Company Position
Damon Stapleton DDB Group New Zealand Chief Creative Officer
Shane Bradnick DDB Group New Zealand Executive Creative Director
Brett Colliver DDB Group New Zealand Creative Director
Mike Felix DDB Group New Zealand Creative Director
Sarsha Drakeforde DDB Group New Zealand Art Director
Geordie Wilson DDB Group New Zealand Copywriter
Judy Thompson DDB Group New Zealand Executive Agency Producer
Alva Waldron DDB Group New Zealand Agency Producer
Mark Trethewey DDB Group New Zealand Editor
Dan Partington DDB Group New Zealand Sound Engineer
Justin Mowday DDB Group New Zealand CEO
James Blair DDB Group New Zealand Lead Business Partner
Katya Urlwin DDB Group New Zealand Business Director
Jaheb Barnett DDB Group New Zealand Business Director
David Owen DDB Group New Zealand Business Manager
Jarrod Stevenson DDB Group New Zealand Business Manager
Liz Knox DDB Group New Zealand Digital Director
Haydn Kerr DDB Group New Zealand Digital Creative Director
Johannes Gertz DDB Group New Zealand Executive Digital Director
Simon Betton DDB Group New Zealand Lead Developer
Paul Hutcheon DDB Group New Zealand Lead Front End Developer
Liam Norris DDB Group New Zealand Social Planner
Marcel de Ruiter DDB Group New Zealand Studio Director
Nick White DDB Group New Zealand Videographer/Illustrator
Claudia McDonald DDB Group New Zealand/Mango PR Managing Director
Max Burt DDB Group New Zealand/Mango PR Senior Account Manager
Chloe Tonkin DDB Group New Zealand/Mango PR Account Manager

The Campaign

Re:scam is an AI chatbot designed to do the one thing you shouldn’t: reply to scams. When you forward any suspicious emails to Re:scam, it identifies scam emails and then begins a never-ending conversation with the scammer so they waste their time talking to a chatbot instead of real targets. Re:scam uses IBM Watson to analyse emails and add to its ever growing vocabulary. With multiple personalities and the ability to generate false account information (including credit card numbers, bank account information and postal addresses) there's no way for scammers to know they're talking to computer. Users can check up on and share the conversations they initiate, fuelling an important global conversation. This constant flow of emails from scammers provides entertaining content but also up to the minute data on trending scams. Re:scam is using this to educate people through social media, and shares all scammer information with cybercrime agencies.

Creative Execution

After a year of development and testing Re:scam was unleashed on the world’s scammers. At time of launch it had a database of responses exceeding 100,000 phrases, built from engagement with real scammers. Every element of Re:scam from its responses to its appearance and speech are digitally generated. We first shared Re:scam with local television news and then released a video in which Re:scam introduced itself to the world with one simple instruction: forward all scams to me@rescam.org. Within 24 hours of going live Re:scam had gone global. In the next week it made its way to the front of Reddit and publications like The Guardian, Reuters, Vice, LAD Bible and Buzzfeed. Because people can check in on and share the conversations being had with their scammer(s) Re:scam generates unique content for each user. As hoped, Re:scam had people talking about scamming all around the world. Re:scam joined the conversation through various social media accounts which it uses to educate and update followers and influencers on scams and how to avoid them. At Rescam.org people can meet the chatbot ‘faces to face’, learn about what it is, how it works and why it needed to be created. The site features our favourite conversations and updates on the cumulative amount of time wasted by scammers. Through the site people can get advice on avoiding scams, and connect to the right support for victims of scams. Remarkably, many victims in denial about being scammed broke their cycle by connecting to Netsafe through Re:scam. With the steady flow of incoming scammer emails, Re:scam collects up to the minute data on trending scams and the scammers that are sending them. This information is analysed and used by Netsafe, as well as shared with cybercrime fighting agencies like The Police, Interpol and The FBI.

Links

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