

Big Hero Snitch
Fight or Flight
Client: Medius
Despite helping to prevent billions of pounds of fraud, whistleblowers are often isolated and victimised. This negative perception of whistleblowers discourages future whistleblowers from coming forward, with our Medius research revealing that 4 out of 5 finance professionals who suspected fraud were too scared to report it. The harmful labels given to whistleblowers often last a lifetime. Traitor, troublemaker, rat, snitch. But what about hero? Our campaign, Big Hero Snitch, set out to reclaim these harmful labels and replace them with more positive words, so that future whistleblowers felt safer and more confident. Big Hero Snitch used targeted social and OOH ads to provoke our audience into re-examining their own perception of whistleblowers. It kick-started a movement, generating conversation and inspiration among whistleblowers and our target finance professionals audience. Former Whistleblowers shared their stories of victimisation and abuse on the Medius LinkedIn page. Lawyers joined our movement in solidarity, whistleblowing NGOs got in touch to help, and one university professor told us he’d dedicated a course module to finding more positive words to describe whistleblowers. Our campaign attracted a broad range of business media coverage from the FT to the Wall St Journal. Ultimately, we earned attention by asking an important question: how can we fight fraud if people are too scared to report it?