Damaging headlines were positioning Kaspersky Lab as 'dark', 'suspicious', even 'dangerous'. But the irony is they're actually the people bringing vulnerabilities to light – then protecting them. They're not the threat; they're the people helping defend against them.

We needed to make people want to protect their data - then position Kaspersky Lab as the people who can help you do it. But you only protect something if you value it. Audience research showed people don't value their data because it's intangible - they can't see or touch it, so they forget to care about it.

We made data tangible by turning into a currency - the 'Data Dollar'.

The ‘Data Dollar' is the world's first ever currency for personal data. We created a currency symbol and brought it to life at a pop-up store in London's Old Street station where people could 'buy' exclusive merchandise with their Data Dollars.

We created two assets to boost the impact of the store - a symbol and a film. Together, these ensured we could tell a compelling story at the intersection of brand, PR, advertising and guerrilla marketing.

The store

We sold exclusive merchandise by street artist Ben Eine. Fans could 'buy' prints, t-shirts or mugs with private photos, emails or messages conversations that were instantly posted on a live out-of-home unit outside the store. This simple tactic was hugely effective in helping people understand the value of their data. Several people returned 'bought' items and demanded to have their data removed.

The symbol

We drew inspiration from traditional currency symbols and used binary 0s and 1s to build a new symbol that generated buzz akin to bitcoin.

The hidden camera film

This formed the key asset in a post-event paid campaign that emphasized the true value of data.

The store itself was a great success with four-hour queues and hundreds of shoppers. A footfall of 140,000 over the course of the event ensured high impact when people's personal data was displayed, and meant that Kaspersky Lab's message reached thousands instantly.

The subsequent geo-targeted Facebook ad campaign generated a total of 2.4 million impressions - 78% (1.86 million) of which were organic. This resulted in a cost per view of $0.01 - outperforming the target by 1,000%.

The campaign achieved 336 million earned media impressions in outlets like Time Out, Huffington Post, the Evening Standard and Hello! Magazine. These earned results were complemented by nearly 100 comments, more than 400 shares and more than 1,500 likes for the video - all contributing to a positive, palpable buzz about the value of data.

The results, at a time of infamy, were so compelling that they have inspired the brand to continue to take a brave and purposeful approach in advocating for the cyber security of consumers moving forward - and at a global level. This approach should increase the budget sufficiently to allow proper trial-driving integration to ensure that people not only value their data in the future, but also protect their data with Kaspersky Lab products. As the world becomes more aware of the vulnerability of their data, the brand is poised to help people become vigilant and empowered to protect it.