Scammers steal more than £1.17 billion from the UK each year. To combat this, the Financial Conduct Authority launched the Firm Checker, a simple tool that instantly verifies whether a company is authorised. The problem? To make a difference, this tool needed to go from being brand new, to becoming an essential step when investing.

The solution was Emil the seal, a 7-foot wake up call who interrupts people at the exact moment they are about to invest. We launched him on TV, then took him to where we know people receive financial advice – on their socials (on #fintok). In the real world at Waterloo station, we created a billboard with a built-in cash machine which interrupted commuters with the promise of a "fortune." Hidden T&Cs revealed it was a “fortune* COOKIE,” but as predicted, nobody checked. When people tapped their card, the ATM appeared to charge them, before revealing Emil, delivering a fortune cookie.

Emil made "check if it's real before you seal the deal" simple, memorable and instinctive. And it worked. The campaign drove significant behavioural change. Usage of the Firm Checker surged, awareness increased at scale, and checking with the FCA became an instinctive first step.

Described by BBC News as ‘’Game Changing,’’ the campaign garnered 380 Pieces of Media coverage and a reach of over 493 million, driving a 338% increase in firm checker users.