Underlining its commitment to educating customers about scams and fraud, Santander has teamed up with Kurupt FM from BAFTA-winning BBC TV show People Just Do Nothing to launch its latest fraud awareness campaign, ‘MC Grindah’s Deadliest Dupes’.
Deadliest Dupes is a three episode mini-series, fronted by the self-proclaimed lyrical badman of pirate radio, MC Grindah, as he goes undercover to investigate the murky underbelly of scams and fraud and has been created to grab the attention of younger audiences online.
Born out of stats showing the propensity of Gen Z to fall victim to scams, and research into how their behaviours online can make them vulnerable to fraudsters, each episode focusses on fraud that commonly affects younger people. The three videos use humour to land an important scam avoidance message with viewers: ‘Don’t Get Kurupted’.
The three films are:
1) ‘The Identity Thief’: Steves and Grindah come face to face with ‘Fake Steves’. It’s not long until Grindah inadvertently gives his password away to the smooth-talking scammer.
2) ‘The Online Scammer’: Grindah bumps into a familiar face in Chabuddy G, who demonstrates just how easy it is to end up getting ripped off when buying online.
3) ‘The Money Mule’: Beats provides protection as Grindah meets a notorious money launderer. But it turns out that it’s not just hardened criminals who do time for money laundering, it can happen to regular people if they misuse their bank account.
Industry data shows that in the last year, ID theft among people under 21 has risen by 26%1 while 50% of money mules are aged 26 or under and 27% are aged 21 or under1.
Meanwhile Santander’s own research shows that those aged under 25 are three times more likely to act on an instruction in scam correspondence2, 85% have shared details on Instagram that could leave them open to ID theft3 and a quarter have entered personal details on a website using unsecure WiFi4.
The digitally led campaign will run across Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. Paid media will drive people to an online hub (www.deadliestdupes.co.uk) where they can find out more about the tricks used by online fraudsters and test their own ‘scam smarts’ with a specially designed quiz.
The campaign was developed by ENGINE and directed by Ben Green at Roughcut TV.
Susan Allen, Head of Retail & Business Banking, Santander UK, said: “We’re committed to fighting financial crime and work hard to raise awareness of fraud and scams with all age groups. We recognised that to engage younger audiences with these important messages, we needed to do something different and memorable. We hope that everyone, no matter what age, will enjoy Deadliest Dupes and learn how to stay safe so they Don’t Get Kurupted.”
Jo Moore, Creative Director, ENGINE, said: “We wanted to create a trojan horse of a campaign, that would teach young people how to avoid losing out to scammers without them even realising they were learning something.”
MC Grindah, Kurupt FM, said: “Ross Kemp, Danny Dyer, Trevor MacDonald - they all think they’re bad and they’re not but guess what I am cos I went to uni...the university of the streets. Just to make sure you know what I mean yeah? It’s not actually a real uni it’s a metaphor - I would never go uni.”
Deadliest Dupes follows previous fraud awareness campaigns run by Santander including its Phish & Chips van which toured the UK handing out free fish and chips and a side portion of advice on avoiding scams. And the Scam Avoidance School introduced in branches in 2018 and to date attended by over 20,000 people.
Ends
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Media Enquiries
Miranda Seymour T: 020 7756 4189 M: 07860 857999 E: miranda.seymour@santander.co.uk
Deborah Lewis T: 020 7756 4212 M: 07845 051939 E: deborah.lewis@santander.co.uk
Editors Notes
- CIFAS Fraudscape 2019
- OnePoll research commissioned by Santander among 2000 adults: Sept 2017
- OnePoll research commissioned by Santander among 2000 18-24 year olds: Oct 2018
- OnePoll research commissioned by Santander among 2000 adults: June 2019
About Santander
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. It has brought real competition to the UK, through its innovative products for retail customers and relationship banking model for UK SMEs. At 31 December 2018, the bank has c23,800 employees. It serves around 15 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking; and 64 regional Corporate Business Centres. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers’ eligible deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.
About ENGINE
ENGINE is a full stack consultancy, technology, insight, data, experience, advertising and public relations company. We are obsessive about the future, growth, ideas, culture, people, simplicity, rigour, and taking risks. 800 brains. 1 front door.