Montana State Fund is Montana’s guaranteed workers’ compensation insurer. Over the course of the past 15 years, we’ve collaborated with its team on many workplace safety campaigns. Some have been earnest, some scary and some envelope-pushing funny. So, when the team at MSF decided that after two-plus years of somber marketing (thanks, Covid!) their audience of workers and employers across the state needed a laugh, we went to work.

The resulting campaign is as memorable as it is funny. In the TV spot, a dufus of a worker performs routine tasks unsafely as his co-workers complain about his lack of safety. He stands on a desk to change a light bulb, lifts with his back instead of his legs, eschews the wearing of safety gear, and more. Oh, and he does it all completely naked. (Well, he does have boots on.)

He also appears on billboards and in digital placements with various types of equipment. In each case, he’s working unsafely; covered by nothing but a strategically positioned stack of boxes, tool or headline. And in each case, a brilliantly clear payoff drives home the campaign’s theme — Workplace safety: You’re naked without it.

The campaign targeted Montana residents, ages 18 to 60. We deployed local TV, outdoor, radio and sports sponsorships to achieve reach, and built on that with targeted placements in digital, connected TV, streaming radio/podcast and social media.

We also built a custom dashboard to track the performance of the media tactics and landing page results. The nine-week campaign garnered more 6.7M digital impressions and 4.4M billboard impressions, airing 17,575 television spots and 3,298 radio spots. In addition, the campaign drove an increase of 208% more visits to the custom landing page than the previous campaign in Spring 2022.

Equally as important as the paid campaign, Gary earned statewide buzz. Naked was featured on nightly news broadcasts in Montana’s largest cities, covered in newspapers across Montana and prompted comments on Montana State Fund’s social channels — the majority of which were positive, even complimentary (no small feat for a work comp insurer).

Next up, we plan to extend the campaign in 2023 with additional tactics, a sweepstakes with prizes and a fresh run of media. In other words, look for added exposure soon!