How do you take a low-interest category like home safety and make consumers care during the busy winter holiday season? Partner with iconic Muppets characters - known for their dangerous antics - to showcase holiday home safety in a humorous, visually compelling way. For more than 118 years, UL has been testing, verifying and inspecting thousands of everyday items to reduce injuries and keep families safe. UL is a not-for-profit, independent product-safety certification organisation with no brand affiliation: Their only concern is safety. The UL Mark adorns billions of products, yet consumers had low awareness of UL. Even worse, safety as a category experienced a decline in top-of-mind awareness, while the rate of household injuries crept upward.Our objectives were to educate moms on holiday safety while increasing awareness and purchase intent for UL-Marked products.

Through a combination of paid, owned and earned channels, we executed a 2-part communications strategy that mixed both humour and seriousness to surround moms across a variety of genres. Part 1 of the strategy featured Disney’s 'The Muppets' humorously portraying holiday dangers, while part 2 utilized UL’s engineers creating real-life serious safety demonstrations.

The campaign had a unified call-to-action: Commit a Minute to Safety.The campaign increased:• Awareness by 20%*;• Behaviour changes ensuring a safer home environment: advocacy by 22%, purchase intent by 11%*;• Engagement: 43,000+ Facebook fans; 400,000+ website visits; 110,000 consumers reached; • Publicity: 515m PR impressions, 80% message penetration;* Millward Brown

Goal: Educate moms on holiday safety and make UL relevant.

Our objectives were to increase:• UL Awareness by 10%;• Behaviour changes: advocacy, purchase intent for UL-Marked products for a safer home environment;• Engagement: - Facebook fans +24,000; - Website unique visitors +300,000; - Event reach +100,000; • Publicity: - 450m PR impressions; - 70% message penetration.UL segmentation and MRI data identified our target as young mothers. Primary research validated their holiday habits and interest in the campaign and our messages. We discovered that 72% of our target would care 'very much' about holiday safety messages.

From October to December we reached moms with a series of compelling safety solutions across earned, owned and paid channels. We created a continuous flow of simple solutions to the biggest holiday dangers – unattended cooking, trees, lights and candles. Through both serious and humorous visuals, we coupled timely information with a simple ask: commit a minute to safety.

Highlights:• Hosted 'Good Morning America' for multiple safety demonstrations; released custom Muppets content during Fire Safety Month;• Circulated cooking safety content during Thanksgiving, generating coverage from 'TODAY', 'World News Tonight' and The Wall Street Journal; • Distributed holiday home safety PSA with Beaker electrocuted Muppets-style from faulty holiday lighting;
• Utilised Kermit in a radio spot, PBS interstitial, and interviews with 'Entertainment Tonight' and CNN; • Sponsored tree-lighting events to surround families with simple safety solutions;
• Amplified the campaign with social media, print and online advertising.

By exceeding the Commit a Minute to Safety campaign goals, we had more than 231m minutes committed to safety in just 2.5 months.

We’re proud of these impressive numbers, but even prouder of the fact that more consumers than ever before learned how to protect the ones they love.Objectives and Results:Behaviour Change and Brand Awareness:*• Increased advocacy by 22%;• Increased purchase intent of UL-Marked products to ensure a safer home environment by 11%;• Increased awareness for UL by 20% *According to Millward Brown pre/post campaign measurementEngagement:• Facebook fans increased by 24,000. Result = 43,000+ Facebook fans (+183%);• Website unique visitors increased by 300,000. Result = 400,000+ unique visits (+133%);• Reach 100,000+ people at events. Result = 110,000 consumers reached (110%). Publicity:• 450m PR impressions. Result = 515m PR impressions (+114%); • 70% message penetration. Result = 80% message penetration.

It only takes a minute for tragedy to occur and it only takes a minute to prevent it. This was the foundation behind the Commit a Minute to Safety campaign, which provided moms with a series of simple safety solutions they could do in less than a minute to ensure a safer home environment.As a non-profit, it was especially important that our campaign received a media multiplier effect across paid, owned and earned channels to maximise dollars. Our 2-part communications strategy was devised to leverage a mixture of both humour and seriousness to surround moms. Part 1 of the strategy featured Disney’s 'The Muppets' humorously portraying holiday dangers, while part 2 utilised UL’s engineers creating real-life serious safety demonstrations.

Our integrated strategy ensured our paid, owned and earned channels had a consistent look/feel, message and 1 central call to action: commit a minute to safety.

For more than 118 years, UL has been testing, verifying and inspecting thousands of everyday things to reduce injuries and keep families safe. UL is a not-for-profit, independent product-safety certification organisation; they have no brand affiliation; their only concern is safety.

But while every household in the U.S. has on average 125 UL Marks in it, consumers had low awareness of UL. Even worse, safety as a category experienced a decline in top-of-mind awareness, while the rate of household injuries crept upward.