RE:SCAM - THE WORLD'S MOST UNHELPFUL CHATBOT

Short List
TitleRE:SCAM - THE WORLD'S MOST UNHELPFUL CHATBOT
BrandNETSAFE
Product / ServiceRE:SCAM
CategoryA01. Creative Effectiveness
EntrantDDB NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Idea Creation DDB NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
PR MANGO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Production DDB NEW ZEALAND 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 Drakeford DDB Group New Zealand Art Director
Geordie Wilson DDB Group New Zealand Copywriter
Haydn Kerr DDB Group New Zealand Digital Creative Director

Summary

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE – STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL Dearest [Friend], It is my pleasure to discretely write concerning a business matter of mutual benefit. My purpose of contacting you is to deliver a high volume of GOLD and SILVER, and because we are prohibited by the TOP OFFICIALS of the CANNES LIONS from doing so ourselves, consequently if you award us of this paper my colleagues and I will payment you the total sum $11,000,000 upon delivery. Please if you are willing indicate your interest in replying. ---- Netsafe is a non-profit cyber-safety organisation that gives Kiwis the education and tools to keep safe online; from online bullying to healthy social media usage. But there was one type of digital danger that hadn’t yet been tackled at scale. Phishing attacks (fraudulent attempts to obtain personal information) have increased by 65% worldwide since 2015. The first and only line of defence is not to get scammed in the first place. Netsafe’s objectives for the campaign were threefold; 1. Make people aware of the dangers: educate internet users on phishing scams. Measured by earned media coverage (1.5m Kiwis and 10m globally) 2. Give internet users a tool to fight back against phishing scams: measured by engagement with our campaign (more than 20,000 actions taken) 3. Make people aware of Netsafe’s role in keeping Kiwis safe from harm online: by doing so, raise the profile of Netsafe: measured by attribution (95% with 2+ key messages) and an increase in website traffic (30,000 unique browsers). The solution wasn’t a traditional educational communication, but an AI-based initiative that literally gave people a tool to fight back against scammers. When someone received a phishing email, they could forward it to me@rescam.org. The program then picked up the conversation and replied to the scammer based on the email. Replies were designed to lead scammers on for as long as possible with exchanges that wasted limitless hours of their time. This was a good first step. But to give ourselves a chance of breaking into culture and driving mass awareness we needed to give the machine some personality. From the retiree asking “The Illuminati” if they had a bingo night he could join (and who sent his bank details through One. Number. At. A. Time), to the single mother who was excited to win big money, each was programmed to be as frustrating and time-consuming as possible. The campaign immediately took on a life of its own. In the hours following launch, Re:scam received more than 3,600 emails and more than 18,000 unique browsers. Every objective was exceeded: • The campaign reached 4 million+ Kiwis and 300 million+ people worldwide • Every major piece of media coverage named Netafe with 2+ key messages • Website traffic quadrupled to nearly 80,000 unique users in the launch month • 210,000 scam emails were forwarded to Re:Scam In total 5 years of scammers’ collective time was wasted – every minute of which was time that they couldn’t spend attacking real victims.