More than 40% of consumers purchase computer security products based on brand awareness alone, but how do you make security sexy? Internet security company McAfee, threw down the challenge: “Make McAfee as popular with the media as Hollywood celebs”.

The annual brand-awareness campaign “Most Dangerous Celebrities in Cyberspace” campaign attracted headlines in 2007 and 2008. Yet in 2009, we needed to penetrate deeper into the consumer media, and given the state of the economy, do it for less.

The campaign demonstrated how cybercriminals use celebrities to lure internet users to fake websites that look legitimate but contain malware embedded in content.  McAfee's SiteAdvisor tool was used to create data indicating which search topics are the most dangerous, including which stars turn up the riskiest results. We also provided guidelines to the global PR teams on how to replicate the campaign themselves using popular celebrities from each region.

This year, Jessica Biel was named “Most Dangerous Celeb” as users face a one-in-five chance of getting a virus when searching for her.  

Red’s outreach to mainstream consumer lifestyle, entertainment media and late night talk shows generated front page news.

The campaign received 500 million impressions in the US, 2,000 stories globally, and mentions on TV shows like E!'s Daily Ten and even Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Our social media efforts generated thousands of tweets mentioning the news. More than 80% of coverage mentioned McAfee by the second paragraph.

The campaign was the lead story on Perez Hilton's blog, Entertainment Weekly, and MSN Entertainment, with stories also on the Huffington Post and The Onion. The Tonight Show was even working the campaign into one of its opening monologues.

It was awarded PR Week’s “Best Global PR Campaign of 2010” and "Best Global Program 2010" at the Sabre Awards. McAfee’s senior vice president of consumer marketing dubbed it the “most successful campaign in the company’s history”.

And, after we delivered an official “Most Dangerous Celebrity” trophy to Jessica Biel, she told the PR team that it was her “biggest news story” of 2010.