Information Security Campaign

The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the principal pension scheme for universities and higher education institutions, approached Studiowide with a mission: to design a campaign that would drive home the importance of Information Security to their employees.

The campaign’s goal was to raise awareness about the risks associated with mishandling sensitive company information.

USS requested a 6-poster campaign, accompanied by a 16-page booklet to reinforce the key messages featured in the posters.

As with any campaign of this nature, our first step was to hold a strategy review meeting with the client. This meeting allowed us to dive deep into the brief, brainstorm ideas, and get a clear understanding of the campaign’s objectives. From this session, we developed two strong concepts. The winner? Our ‘Make Information Security a Reality’ concept.

The creative idea behind ‘Make Information Security a Reality’ was to contrast the seriousness of data security with a playful, non-conforming cartoon world. In this cartoon world, characters behave recklessly, ignoring information security policies because they believe there’s no real risk—they’re not in the “real” world, after all.

Each of the six posters in the campaign highlighted the consequences of this carefree attitude. In the cartoon world, incidents occur because data is left unguarded or mishandled, leading to all sorts of chaos. But when we shift back to reality, we see the real-world risks and consequences of such breaches, bringing the message home: information security isn’t a joke.

To bring this concept to life, we used a blend of photo manipulation and cartoon illustrations, creating scenes where real-world characters navigate a cartoon environment. The inspiration? Think the inverse of Roger Rabbit: instead of cartoons in the real world, we placed real people in a whimsical, yet risky, cartoon world.

The Information Security booklet and poster campaign were completed within 4 weeks, and USS was thrilled with both the creative concept and the final designs.

Here’s what our client had to say:

“We commissioned Studiowide to design and produce a series of posters to highlight key risks related to information security, supported by a pocket guide for staff summarising key messages. We knew the themes we wanted to communicate, but we needed creative expertise to convey them effectively. The Studiowide team was approachable, open to our ideas, and brought their own innovative concepts to the table, helping us create an original and impactful campaign.

This was our first internal campaign of this kind, and timeframes and costs were a key consideration. Studiowide was professional throughout, working within our schedule and being transparent about costs. Any decisions that could have impacted costs were discussed upfront.

While the long-term effectiveness of the campaign will be seen over time, early feedback has been very positive, with staff acknowledging that the key messages have been successfully communicated. I would not hesitate to use Studiowide again and would certainly recommend them to other organisations.”  Robert Lee, USS Ltd