Money muling had increased dramatically during the pandemic with over 17,000 of 18–34-year-olds involved in the criminal activity. However, awareness was low, and many didn’t realise they were committing a crime.
We were challenged by Royal Bank to build a campaign that would start a conversation about the issue among our target audience, educate them on the topic and create shareable content, with a narrative that was newsworthy enough to increase awareness further.
With our audience already TikTok and Instagram natives, we created a content series that alerted them to the risks, using a recognisable ambassador that was approachable and spoke their language.
Comedian and social influencer Paul Black to become our ‘money mule man’, travelling the country offering members of the public £100 to act as his money mule. If you said yes, you were reminded of the repercussions, if you said no, you won the £100.
We captured the conversations and reactions, creating content for both Paul’s and the bank’s owned channels. We also alerted media that we’d be in town, inviting them down to capture their own photography and videography – helping us expand and tell the story.
The four-week campaign resulted in over half a million views across Instagram and TikTok channels, 39 pieces of media coverage, a media reach of 6.2M and the highest engagement rates of all content shared on Royal Bank’s owned social channels.
During our second filming session, punters were more hesitant to accept Paul’s tempting cash offer, recognising him from the first series and now armed with money muling knowledge, anecdotally evidencing the success of the campaign!
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