Case Study

AARP Fraud Watch Network

CONSUMER INSIGHTS
Associations

Understanding fraud triggers and teaching the “active pause”.

THE CHALLENGE

Americans lost a record-breaking $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024—a 25% increase from the previous year—as criminals continuously evolve to target consumers and AI-driven fraud becomes increasingly imperceptible. With over 95 million Americans making themselves vulnerable by responding to unknown contacts, developing effective, universal protection strategies that can be quickly deployed against these rapidly advancing criminal tactics has become critically important.

OUR STRATEGY

This effort was designed to create a fraud prevention equivalent to “Stop, Drop and Roll”—a near-universal message for recognizing and avoiding fraud attempts. The challenge was building consumer awareness of three known elements common to most scams—unexpected contact, a surge of emotion and a sense of urgency—and incorporating them into effective messaging that could serve as universal warning signals transcending specific scam types.

Heart+Mind Strategies utilized its Illumination Lab to gather input from dozens of experts worldwide, including educators, fraud specialists, law enforcement, federal agencies and a linguist. Generation-specific focus groups and a quantitative study were conducted to generate and test words and phrases that would resonate and be memorable.

IMPACT

The research culminated in “Pause. Reflect. Protect.”—a memorable three-step response that consumers can deploy when they recognize the universal fraud triggers. This active pause is not simply stopping, but rather an intentional act of stepping back and reflecting on the situation before acting. The resulting framework provides consumers with a concrete, actionable response they can use whenever they encounter unexpected contact, emotional manipulation, or urgent demands, regardless of the specific scam being attempted, thereby creating the desired universal fraud prevention tool.