Zulu Alpha Kilo

Client: HomeEquity Bank
Product: HomeEquity Bank
Title: Catch the Scam
Media: OLV
Country: Canada
Date Of Campaign: August 26, 2020

Background: HomeEquity Bank serves Canadians aged 55+ exclusively. The bank’s brand purpose is to give people the freedom to live retirement their way, by retiring in the homes they love. Fraud prevention is a major issue that HEB has taken a leadership position on in the past few years. To protect its clients from scam artists amid the pandemic, HomeEquity Bank (HEB) developed a fraud prevention masterclass titled Catch the Scam. Frank Abagnale – the program’s celebrity teacher – is widely known as history’s most notorious conman and was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit film Catch Me If You Can. Despite stealing over $2.5M from banks and leading authorities on a global manhunt in the late ‘60s, today, Abagnale is one of the world’s leading security experts.

Idea: Each episode begins with Abagnale setting up a particular phone scam before he dives deeper into its psychological and financial mechanics. Of course, he also infuses his infamous charm and wit along the way.Four Catch the Scam episodes focused on scams that targeted Canadian seniors: “The Grandparent Scam” – scammers pose as a victim’s grandchild in need of cash“The Lottery Scam” – scammers lead victims to believe they’ve actually won money“The Romance Scam” – scammers romantically charm victims out of large sums “The CRA Scam” – scammers pose as Canada’s federal tax agency to collect back taxesThe content was delivered as a four-part series through YouTube and Facebook, with a very limited $25,000 budget directed at reaching these seniors.

Results: Despite a media budget of just $25,000, Catch the Scam generated over 1.2M unique views on You Tube and 817K on Facebook – across an audience that typically skews towards traditional media. The campaign generated significant top-tier broadcast and online media coverage across Canada and beyond with more than 35 million media impressions. Frank Abagnale – the campaign’s celebrity teacher – was interviewed on national stations like Global News, BNN Bloomberg and Yahoo! News as networks looked to help ensure seniors everywhere could Catch the Scam.