The CMA tasked us with delivering their first-ever consumer campaign to educate consumers on misleading online sales practices (MOPs) which their research showed was leading to both financial and emotional harms.

Our task was to create a disruptive consumer campaign to make consumers aware of MOPs such as subscription traps, hidden charges, pressure selling and fake reviews so that they can protect themselves and make better purchasing choices online. We needed to help shoppers spot and avoid these practices with a secondary objective of influencing businesses to stop implementing MOPs due to reputational and financial risks.

We created ‘Rip-Off Road’, a real-life market with characters and stalls designed to represent the most common MOPs we had identified, demonstrating how they operate, alongside the tips on how to avoid them. We identified consumer champion and co-host of the Martin Lewis Money Show, Angellica Bell, as the most suitable messenger to front the campaign. Central to the campaign, we produced a three-minute hero film fronted by Angellica to help consumers identify MOPs by showcasing them on Rip-Off Road, which was pitched to press.

We also secured regional spokespeople from partner Citizens Advice and localised our stats to hit the key regional titles and radio stations, together with a radio day and pre-recorded audio package and we recruited five influencers mapped against our target audiences to share their own experiences of MOPs to educate and entertain their followers which provided longevity over the following month.

The campaign achieved over 115 pieces of coverage across broadcast, national, regional, consumer and trade (including Lorraine, Steph’s packed lunch, BBC Breakfast, The Independent and The Evening Standard), 209 million OTS, and a 359% increase on KPIs. We also placed CMA’s policy director in business focused trade media and podcasts to target businesses directly.

All pieces of coverage included CMA / Competition and Markets Authority mention, increasing brand recognition, while the campaign name: ‘The Rip-Off Tip-Off’ and the hero film were included in 92% of coverage.

The campaign changed behaviours and was successful in helping online shoppers spot and avoid MOPs: an estimated 9.6 million people recognised the campaign and 6.7m people who recognised the campaign took a positive action; 72% said the campaign gave them useful tips; 70% said they took a positive action as a result; 93% said the campaign was effective at raising awareness; and 89% said the campaign would make them double check a sales tactic.

To find out more and learn how to shop confidently, head to ripoff-tipoff