Everyone loves the spectacle of a big storm, right? Big grey clouds moving fast across the sky, claps of thunder rolling, forks of lightening like fireworks in the sky. But guess what, for those few minutes of nature flexing her muscles, she racks up approximately $1.1 billion dollars a year in damages. Yep, you read that right. In fact the hailstorm we had on Christmas Day last year cost $712 million in damage to houses, cars, and property.

So when the Victorian State Emergency Service (SES) asked Deepend to take the annual StormSafe campaign to a new level we happily obliged.

“Storms can happen anywhere at anytime with very little warning” said Lachlan Quick, SES Media and Community Information Manager. “What we need is for Victorian’s to understand that by doing a few small things to prepare their homes, they can save themselves thousands of dollars in damages.”

The Deepend team created an interactive digital marketing campaign that included a buyout of The Age, Facebook advertising and a series of viral videos that introduced the character ‘Storm Man’.

The persona of “Storm Man” was created as the central character used across the videos. The ‘tongue in cheek’ feel of the videos brings humour to scenarios that we all partake in everyday. The tagline of “You never know when the storm will hit” drives home a serious message in a fun, light-hearted way.

“Storm Man was all about putting a face to the force of mother nature. We used SES volunteers to play all of the roles to give an extra sense of authenticity” said Deepend’s Creative Director, Fred Haas.

SES is largely synonymous with promoting messages of a serious nature, so the move to making their audience laugh was an unexplored tact for them that has been a huge success.

Watch the campaign video on Deepend’s YouTube page:

http://www.bandt.com.au/breaking-campaigns/victorians-beware-the-purple-storm-man-1