May the 4th Be With You
Micro Recruitment Campaign
AMERICAN IN-HOUSE GRAPHIC DESIGN AWARD - GRAPHIC DESIGN USA
May the 4th Be With You (also known as Star Wars Day) was a micro campaign created to attract potential new recruits and bolster the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA), Cybersecurity Division’s (CSD) image by using humor and creativity. We understand the importance of recruitment, attracting the best and brightest and accomplished this by creating highly visual and engaging media.
The campaign was targeted toward the Gen Y and Z demographic although we anticipated reaching a larger audience given the Gen X nostalgia for Star Wars. We created a triptych playing off the first Star Wars trilogy: “CISA: A New Agency”, “The Attack of the Botnets”, and “The CISAzen Victory”. We included our Yookie, our unofficial mascot, and illustrated additional characters: Darth Pineapple & his legion of pineapple bots and Krebs Solo, based on our Agency Director, Christopher Krebs.
What the pineapple bot? Based on a 2019 campaign headed by our Agency Director, “The War on Pineapple”, pineapple pizza was used to demonstrate interference by Russia and other trolls in U.S. elections. Foreign governments, trying to create divisiveness, want Americans to argue and will go after easy pickings like pizza toppings.
The pineapple construct has continued after this initial kickoff as the Director continues the conversation of the vulnerability to foreign influence. Building off this campaign, we created Darth Pineapple, our ultimate adversary, that has deployed his pineapple bots to amplify and distort the online conversation of the American public.
The campaign had a staggered release via Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook throughout the day. It was highlighted on Politico and Meritalk. @CISAGov was the top performing account, earning 116 URL clicks and 43.6K views. The campaign is the single most popular set of posts across all CISA social media.
