SimpliSafe launched in 2009 with beautifully designed products that were easy to install and didn’t require hardwiring or long-term contracts. This category disruptor made it their mission to make every home safe and secure. Like most DTC startups, performance marketing was key to rapid growth. By 2020, SimpliSafe had become a $1B consumer technology company that nobody had heard of or talked about. SimpliSafe had just 5% top-of-mind awareness, lagging far behind big and splashy new category entrants like Ring.

Heading into the 2020 holiday season, SimpliSafe wanted to increase their share of voice and generate mass press attention and interest for SimpliSafe among broader audiences.

The brief: We were tasked with concepting an idea that would be compelling enough to break through the cluttered earned and paid media holiday environment.

Engineered for holiday buzz, the SimpliSafe Social Distancing Sweater was concepted as a festive and innovative security solution inspired by effortless protection and state-of-the-art technology of SimpliSafe. It featured thermal cameras and integrated motion sensors that sound a high frequency alarm whenever someone gets within six feet of it. Lighthearted yet functional, the sweaters were designed to serve a much-needed purpose for consumers.

We created five fully operational prototypes that were used to create promotional content and seed with press, but to breakthrough we knew we needed something tangible for consumers to engage with. To make the sweaters accessible and scale the idea to further entice press, we created 100 sweaters with no added technology. These “analog” sweaters displayed an unofficial six-foot measurement along their wingspan, and we offered free step by step DIY tech installation instructions for consumers to create their own at home with any sweater.

With COVID-19 raging on, safety was top-of-mind for us all and we saw this as an opportunity to hijack a cultural conversation about protection. We asked a simple question: If SimpliSafe can protect your home, could SimpliSafe protect your holiday? To reinforce the importance of keeping a safe distance and lift holiday spirits dampened by the pandemic, we re-engineered everyone’s favorite staple: the ugly sweater.

We created a dedicated website, sweater.simplisafe.com, where our “analog” sweaters were available for purchase only via a donation to NeighborWorks America Rental Resilience Fund, a charitable fund that helps keep individuals and families economically impacted by COVID-19 housed through the pandemic. We wanted to ensure that in addressing holiday security, we were also helping an organization designed to help those most in need. With all the elements of the program we were able to craft storytelling angles across a wide range of press verticals.

We launched with the landing page, :60 video promotional video and analog sweaters on December 14, 2021, just as the holiday conversation was heating up. We leveraged the five tech-enabled prototype sweaters and seeded them with high reaching, fire-starting press contacts across tech, business, lifestyle, and broadcast outlets to generate a groundswell of coverage and buzz. Social videos and shareable GIFs brought our sweater to life and were crucial for demonstrating the sweater functionality to a broader set of press and influencers than our five prototypes could reach. Press pickup started with the tech audience where we already had credibility but given the broader relevance of the sweater and our call to action for consumers to get involved, it spread rapidly across verticals.

Sweaters sold out in two days, so after that, we encouraged consumers to engage with the DIY instructions and continue to make donations to NeighborWorks America.

Overall, our simple, striking innovation and lighthearted safety message, paired with the charitable component allowed us to tell a multifaceted story with top-tier media outlets, generating media-driven surround sound.

Objective: Increase SOV and expand beyond tech

• 2.9B earned media impressions, 6x our goal

? Worth $26,825,000 in ad equivalency, for $0 in paid media spend

? Earned media across various new platforms with large global reach, expanding into mainstream news and lifestyle categories, as well as business and trade

? 80% of coverage in new outlets: 56% on mainstream TV/radio/news, 16% in business, 14% in advertising trades and 13% in lifestyle publications

Bonus: Drive sales conversion 2x above SimpliSafe’s native advertising performance benchmark.

? Drove conversion nearly 3x above target (+191%) and nearly 6x above the performance marketing benchmark for native ad programs (+483%)

? 85% of the traffic driven to Simplisafe.com by the campaign were new customers