Every day people lose money by giving a helping hand to fraudsters. It sounds too absurd to be true. If we’re simply handing money over, why don’t we just stop? People know fraud exists. From fraud authorities, the police, media and consumer groups, there is endless advice and tips to spot the tell-tale signs of fraud.

The truth is that human beings are hard-wired to become victims of fraud. The cause is a condition that lies within us all. That condition is TRUST. In psychology, trust is seen as the default status. We all naturally trust. Research* showed that for 8 out of 10 of us trusting another person is natural. We have an unconscious ‘Trust Reflex’. Our idea was to disrupt and short-circuit this ‘Trust Reflex’ with one simple call to action: To stop and think. To trust LESS. In other words: TAKE FIVE.

*Source: Fishburne Omnibus Research 2015

Campaign execution centered on featuring staggering statistics to convey the pervasiveness of financial fraud, contrasting with personal stories in a viral video showing financial fraud as an every day crime happening to every day people.

As a nationwide campaign execution crossed all channels. To drive earned media the campaign led with PR involving media briefings in London, Manchester and Glasgow. Significant TV and radio broadcast coverage reached and influenced millions. Paid media included outdoor placements in Waterloo Station enhanced on launch day by a flash mob stunt that generated social content for a Facebook and Twitter campaigns.

A destination for campaign content, the website [https://takefive-stopfraud.org.uk] delivers advice for consumers and businesses to protect themselves from financial fraud, and features ‘The Scam Academy’, a series of social experiments captured on video, featuring celebrities to demonstrate the trust reflex and show how effective it is to Take Five.

Tier 1: The Take Five campaign dominated the media landscape, with 109 pieces of online and print coverage appearing in UK media on launch day alone. Broadcast reporting included Good Morning Britain, ITV lunchtime and evening news, BBC Breakfast, BBC Victoria Derbyshire and BBC News 24, among others. In total, TV media reached an astounding 30.6 million people nationwide. Radio interviews on Sky News, Radio 4 and Radio 5 and many more reached an additional 14.8 million.

On social, Facebook reached 1,420 page likes and over 130,000 video views in just two months and the @TakeFive Twitter page received over 595,000 impressions in a single month.

The sentiment of the coverage showed high levels of message pull-through, with 94% presenting the key campaign messages and 69% of articles including quotes from the campaign spokesperson.

Tier 2: From a Censuswide survey for FFA UK nearly a quarter of respondents from a representative sample in the UK recalled the campaign.

Among the exposed group there is a clear impact on decision making, with 66.2% of respondents affirming that they would behave differently when faced with a potential fraud situation. Among the same group, 8 in 10 said they were now somewhat aware or very aware of the steps they can take to prevent financial fraud and scams.