Scams and frauds are on the rise,

and Californians are falling victim at rates never seen before.

“Do Your Own Research” Campaign

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI)

    • Many Californians are vulnerable to fraudulent, predatory or misleading financial information.

    • The DFPI had never launched a consumer financial protection campaign before. A lot of Californians are mistrusting of information provided by government sources and prefer to find their info in places such as social media.

    • “Do Your Own Research” is a mantra plastered on financial sites and crypto blogs, but most sources never teach consumers how to do their own research, and end up doing more harm than good.

    • Existing DFPI outreach lacked impact and shareability in a mobile-first, short-form media landscape. These topics are extremely complicated, but the message needed to be simple

    • Focus groups were engaged to inform consumer behaviors, mindsets and needs. Specific messaging and imagery was tested.

    • Inspired by the common financial mantra of “Do Your Own Research,” the campaign aimed to show consumers how to do that by making financial topics approachable so that they could protect their hard-earned money.

    • We developed short-form social videos with clear, simplified messaging that stripped away jargon, defined terminology, and built consumer confidence.

    • Videos were optimized for mobile-first behavior, strong hooks, subtitles, and shareable lengths. They were deployed across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube, with supporting digital assets to extend reach.

🏅 The street interview campaign won Silver at the 2025 American Advertising Awards, Sacramento

⬇️ Scroll to the end to see the great stats on this campaign

Street Interview Social Videos

Animated Social Videos

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