ETA Advertising, a local boutique advertising agency, has acheived national recognition for its most recent client work, a fashion-forward crime-awareness campaign launched last Wednesday for the Newport Beach Police Department.
Within 24 hours of its launch, “The Stolen Collection” campaign–which features images of models posing as criminals with high-end goods supposedly swiped from the cars of Newport Beach residents–was accepted into The ONE Club Creative Showcase, one of the most prestigious online collections of contemporary advertising.
The multimedia campaign for NBPD includes billboard and ad placements across 14 square miles as well as a 30-second video that will air at local movie theatres, bringing a unique approach to crime prevention that is already garnering praise from police departments looking to combat preventible crime on tight taxpayer budgets. The campaign was paid for using asset forfeiture funds, seized money that must be used to combat crime.
Mike Frey, who provided creative direction for the campaign, says the idea for “The Stolen Collection” came out of a need to target the design-savvy Newport Beach residents, many of whom spend thousands of dollars on high-end valuables each year only to have them taken from them when they leave their cars unlocked.
“We showed the thieves posing with the valuables that they stole in the context of a fashion campaign. This message was crafted to speak directly to Newport Beach residents,” Frey said. “The goal was to make them think, ‘I don’t ever want to make it easy on thieves. I don’t ever want to contribute to The Stolen Collection.'”
The ETA team that contributed to the project includes account executives Cassandra Popli and Paul Gately, creative direction by Mike Frey and Ismael Ford and art direction by Niko Dahilig and Mike Trowbridge. The firm also partnered with fashion photographer Kal Yee to give the campaign images a realistic couture touch.
ETA’s campaign for the Fuego restaurant at Hotel Maya was also accepted into the ONE Club showcase in October. Since then, only one other campaign besides “The Stolen Collection” has been accepted into the showcase.