Monsters in your basement

The Ask: inform residents of Delaware County, PA about the potential dangers of lead in homes built before 1978. The client was insistent on not wanting to make lead feel scary, like “there were monsters in people’s basements.” So what did I do? Suggest a monster based campaign.

But really, it made a lot of sense. The campaign was actually supposed to be aimed at kids, but ultimately influencing their parents to schedule a lead test. Kind of a weird brief. And I thought that by addressing the potential “monster” element and making it a little more non-threatening would actually remove the fear from the process, appeal to kids, and to parents.

We ended up also pairing the monster imagery with the concept of Lead Free in 1-2-3. A little simplistic, I know, but it got the job done. I condensed the process of checking your home for lead into three easy steps, further removing potential fear. The client loved it.

We ended up naming some of the monsters for organic social that could teach where lead can be found.

Check out the campaign landing page here.

Copywriter: Wes Marshall

ACD: Chris Beck

CD: Justin Moll, Colleen Masters