Approaching pest season in 2023, all the data was pointing to one of Australia’s worst fly seasons on record. Described by national news outlets as “plague like proportions”, where a nation saw a problem, Mortein saw an opportunity to solve a brand problem.

The next generation of insect killer consumers were not engaging with the brand. Part of the problem was Mortein’s brand mascot, Louie the Fly, an Australian icon that had been on TV screens since 1957. Primarily used in TV ads, a channel our audience was switching off from and so he wasn’t relevant to them.

Our objective was to re-ignite the love for Louie, in a way that was far more fitting for the next generation, getting them to fall in love with him like the rest of Australia had for the past 66 years, and in the process, engage with Mortein.

We put a $10,000 bounty on Louie’s head and launched the nation’s biggest fly hunt. Through an AR web app with fly recognition technology, Aussies scanned flies they had killed with Mortein to see if they killed Louie. Every fly scanned became an ad for Mortein, turning 3 billion flies into 3 billion bespoke product demonstrations.

The strategy was simple, leverage our brand icon, an icon that most brands would kill to have.

We knew we had a brand icon that had generated enormous amounts of brand affinity and sales in the past, now we had to find a way to make him as relevant and loved for the next generation.

Like all man (and fly) hunts, it started with FBI sketch artist Gil Zamora creating Louie’s composite drawing. Then we placed wanted posters all over the country through Out Of Home placements and street posters. We created urgency through breaking news announcements that hijacked other brand’s films with breaking news ticker tapes. Influencers joined the hunt, and their followers too, then Louie taunted the public into action on social. It was a fully integrated fly hunt that got the whole country buzzing.

Turns out, the next generation do love Louie. And Mortein too. There was a 105% uplift in sales across all retailers in the first week of the competition. A 132% increase in sales value compared to out of the campaign period. And a 105bps rise in market share over the campaign period.