Red’s award-winning global campaign highlighting the dangers of spam emails propelled software security company McAfee out of the technology pages and into news headlines.

Consumer perception of spam had shifted so much that many people saw spam as merely a nuisance rather than appreciated the long term, serious and costly security risks it can bring. McAfee wanted to increase awareness of this potential danger as well as assert the company’s position as a leading voice on message security.

Red’s ‘S.P.A.M. (Spammed Persistently All Month) Experiment’ enlisted 50 volunteers from 10 countries and challenged them to surf the web unprotected to see just what would happen. They also blogged about their experiences on a dedicated microsite.

The campaign successfully cut through media and consumer apathy towards message security and spam, delivering over 850 pieces of coverage globally with a reach of over 400million. 75% of this coverage was outside of traditional technology pages.

The microsite received approximately 500,000 hits and launch day stories on The S.P.A.M. Experiment proved the top search on Google News in the UK.

This campaign won three awards in 2009.  It won a PR Week Award (Technology category) and two Sabre Awards (Consumer Technology in the European Sabres and Best Use of Research for Publicity at the Sabres USA).

It was also a finalist in the Global PR categories in both the PR Week Awards and CIPR Excellence Awards 2009.