Stopping Medicare Fraud — rebecca price

Medicare Scam Awareness Campaign

Evil scammers assume seniors are an easy target because they don’t have the know-how to stop scams in their tracks. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) wants their Medicare users to stay vigilant, avoid scams and tell their friends to do the same. This campaign centers seniors—not as the typical clueless victim, but as the bold, confident hero that our audience aspires to be.

created at Edelman

Project details:
Digital + TV campaign

How do we inform Medicare users about common scams and what to do if they encounter one?
Create a campaign that centers seniors as confident heroes of their community — they are aware of the scams, know how to shut them down, and spread awareness by telling their friends.
Research showed seniors resent being depicted as helpless, misinformed victims. In order to grab their attention, we needed them feel empowered, confident and connected to community.
campaign concept + art direction, photography art direction, design

See a scam? Shut it down.
:30s tv spot

The “sassy seniors” concept began when copywriter Ruth Aitken and I interviewed my feisty nana and asked what she would say to a scammer…and let’s just say Nana had some choice words. After workshopping her comebacks into PG-rated lines, we paired the copy with imagery of confident older folks living their best lives, hanging up on scammers, and bragging to their friends about it. Don’t underestimate seniors—they don’t need pity, they need scammers to get lost.

For the TV campaign, I was assistant art director, overseeing storyboard development and assisting with casting, wardrobe, location scouting and director selection. (I was also passenger seat DJ while driving to set, a vital role.)

Aspirational, confident seniors talk about scams in familiar settings so the audience can relate — friends in the kitchen, teammates after a game, video chat between a mother and her extremely proud daughter. The dialogue describes common scams and shows how to shut down through clever, sassy comebacks.

Custom Photo Library
Photography art direction

My main role on set was directing the spectacular photographer Pete Barrett to capture portraits of our actors, both on set and-in studio, for a photo library.

Previously, we relied on stock photography for advertising materials, which had downfalls: lack of diversity, stereotypical “confused senior” facial expressions, sterile or stuffy environments. The new photo library was bright, approachable, and most importantly, showed our diverse actors as capable, confident and in control.