Cannes Lions

Christmas Spotlights

HJALTELIN STAHL, Copenhagen / DET KRIMINALPRVENTIVE RAD & TRYGFONDEN / 2017

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Overview

Description

International studies show that light is one of the most effective weapons in the fight against burglars, who are afraid of being seen by neighbors. Meanwhile, Danes decorate their homes with Christmas lights every December. So why not use them to scare off burglars?

Introducing: Christmas Spotlights.

The world's first burglar deterrent Christmas decorations. We combined a motion sensor with a custom built light chain and a control box, and turned Christmas lights into a home security system. Together, they detect any unwanted intruders on your property, and blinds them with up to 12.000 lumen, causing them to flee the premises. At the same time, the light will alert the neighbors, who can inform the owner and call the police.

All of this, achieved by simply combining two things; a 100-year old Christmas tradition with today's home security hardware.

Execution

Due to a non-existent media budget, the campaign was implemented on Facebook and YouTube on December 1st, 2016, and ran for little more than a month, until the season of burglaries had passed.

Not long after the campaign’s release, articles about the burglar deterrent Christmas Spotlights from Denmark, could be found across national news sites, and tech blogs across the globe, such as Gizmodo and Trendhunter. International awareness that resulted in national TV picking up the story.

As mentioned, a limited number of Danes also won their own Christmas Spotlights that came in beautifully created packaging, along with helpful instruction manuals. And because of the overwhelming public interest that ensued, we’re currently pursuing a large-scale national production.

The Christmas Spotlights are CE-marked and meet the requirements of the applicable EC directives. This means they’ve gone from idea, to prototype to certified product.

Outcome

We increased the number of Neighborhood Watchers by more than 45% compared to the previous December, leading to a Christmas with 33% LESS burglaries!

The campaign promoting the Christmas Spotlights, reached 141 countries worldwide, amassing a massive 180 million media impressions. With zero media spend!

Gizmodo, one of the world's biggest tech sites, published articles about our product on their sites in the US, England, Australia and last, but not least, Japan.

The campaign was mentioned in a 10-minute-long interview with our client on national TV.

The first shipment of Christmas Spotlights cost us 13.000 € to produce. A small investment that payed for itself many, many times over in free, worldwide media.

In conclusion, the Christmas Spotlights are not just a creative marketing campaign or stunt. It’s a genuine solution that solves an actual problem, but also a brilliant business idea.

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