Daisy vs Scammers

Strategy

Core insight was rooted in three simple truths: scamming triggers the most visceral of human reactions. Whether successful or attempted, scammers can leave us feeling scared, silly and violated.

There has been a huge amount of behind-the-scenes work on fraud prevention at O2. But despite investing heavily in sophisticated scam-fighting initiatives the brand was seen as part of the problem.

The rest of the telco category’s fraud prevention campaigns focus on top tips, with the onus placed on customers avoiding getting scammed. O2 wanted to show that it was fighting back. Rather than trying to stop scammers, how could the brand waste their time?

Creativity

Meet Daisy: a 78-year-old granny who loves to chat. She tells rambling anecdotes about her grandchildren, forgets her bank details and happily shares her favourite recipes. But Daisy isn’t real. She’'s a sophisticated AI - DAIsy - built from multiple generative AI models that define how she looks, sounds and behaves.

Daisy needed to feel utterly human - authentic, sympathetic, and vulnerable - the kind of target scammers dream of. To achieve this, the brand turned to June, a real grandmother, recording her stories, cadence and quirks. These were used to train Daisy, making her rambling voice notes indistinguishable from a real elderly woman.

Daisy was given special powers. Working with renowned scam-baiter Jim Browning, she was trained on anonymised scam calls, allowing her to respond instinctively to every fraudulent pitch - from hacked bank accounts to fake HMRC debts. She wasted scammers’ time while the team generated content from her calls. Then an online film of Daisy in action, supported by Love Island’s Amy Hart - herself a scam victim - brought her to the world.

Results

Daisy gave O2 a cultural edge through relevance, creativity and purpose. The campaign generated more than 2,000 pieces of global media coverage, with TV features in nine international markets and 2 billion+ earned impressions.

Unprompted campaign recall peaked at 17%: O2’s highest in 2024, still holding at 12%+ a month later. £20,000 paid media spend achieved a total AVE of £36m, a 1,800x return on investment. Satisfaction with the brand efforts to tackle fraud increased by 42%.

Contributors

Broadcast Revolution