Client: UK Finance
Fraud is one of the UK’s fastest-growing crimes, yet audiences are increasingly disengaging from traditional scam prevention messaging. Years of warnings, alerts and awareness campaigns had become wallpaper, easy to tune out and increasingly ineffective at driving meaningful behaviour change. To break through growing ‘fraud fatigue’, UK Finance and Lansons recognised that protecting people required more than repeating the same messages louder; it demanded the power of culture to make audiences stop, engage and think differently. We asked a simple question that unlocked a powerful creative insight: where does fraud already exist in culture? The answer lay in the nation’s obsession with true crime and crime fiction. That became our opportunity: to use a platform audiences actively seek out and love to create something distinctive, emotionally engaging and impossible to ignore. Partnering with bestselling authors Clare Mackintosh, Vaseem Khan and C.L. Taylor, we transformed real fraud tactics into original crime stories that challenged audiences to “spot the scam” before the fictional victims did, turning fraud prevention into participatory entertainment while reinforcing Take Five’s core message: Stop. Challenge. Protect. The result was a multi-channel campaign that cut through. To date, Read Between the Lies has generated 201 pieces of coverage and an earned reach of 193 million, alongside 2.54 million views across paid and owned channels, widespread member amplification and strong audience engagement.
