Cashsquatch

The Challenge

A regional financial institution wanted to launch a financial literacy campaign for young people in Kern County. They did not want a boring flyer or a forgettable social media post. They wanted something that would get the entire community talking, and get the news stations to cover it without paying a cent for airtime.

This is the kind of brief most agencies turn into a paid media plan. We turned it into a six-phase earned media operation that built mystery first, news coverage second, and the reveal third.

The Strategy

A traditional financial literacy campaign would have launched with a flyer, a press release, and a paid spot on local TV. We rejected all three.

Instead, we built the campaign around a single proposition: the news will cover what the community is already talking about, for free, as long as we give them a story worth telling. So we built the story first.

The plan was six phases over five weeks. Phase 1 created mystery in public. Phase 2 turned the mystery into a real-world scavenger hunt. Phase 3 activated 25+ local influencers. Phase 4 used the resulting buzz to tip off newsrooms. Phase 5 anchored the character at the biggest local event of the year. Phase 6 paid off the mystery with a financial literacy reveal at a real school event.

The paid media budget for this whole campaign was zero. The PR budget did the work that ads usually do.

The Execution

Phase 1: The Mystery. Posters appeared around Bakersfield warning of a strange creature sighting. QR codes let the public report their own sightings. The character was spotted at Riverwalk Park, outside the Padre Hotel, near the Fox Theatre, and across downtown, Southwest, and Northwest Bakersfield. People started talking.

Phase 2: The Money Hunts. We hid branded cards around the city. Each one carried a Cashsquatch footprint, the hashtag #CASHSQUATCH, and real cash attached. The message: MONEY IS NO MYTH. Finders posted their wins on social. The scavenger hunt spread across Instagram, Facebook, and Nextdoor.

Phase 3: The Influencer Activation. We coordinated 25+ local Bakersfield creators to amplify the sightings. This was not a paid post arrangement. This was influencer relations: building real relationships, managing logistics, giving creators a reason to participate because the campaign was genuinely worth talking about. Each one made their own content. The hashtag spread.

Phase 4: The News Coverage. We tipped local newsrooms about a mysterious money-covered creature spotted around town. KBAK Eyewitness News ran a Caught on Camera segment. KMPH Fox 26, KERO 23ABC, and the Bakersfield Californian followed. MSN syndicated the story nationally. Every major outlet in the market covered it. Zero seconds of airtime were paid for.

Phase 5: The Kern County Fair. Cashsquatch showed up at the fair. Rode the Ferris wheel. Walked the midway. Took photos with fairgoers. The character became a local celebrity for the week. Hundreds of fairgoers posted their own sightings, fueling another round of organic UGC.

Phase 6: The Reveal. On September 17, 2024, the mystery was solved. At West High School during the Bite of Reality financial literacy event, Cashsquatch was officially revealed as the organization’s new financial literacy mascot. Students participated in budgeting simulations and received Cashsquatch Bucks to open real savings accounts. The campaign came full circle, from mystery to education.

The Results

The $1.2M+ in earned media value came from four channels working together:

• News and radio coverage generated $400,000+ via 25+ minutes of prime airtime across KBAK, KMPH, KERO, and local radio.
• Social media reach generated $400,000 via viral organic content on Instagram, Facebook, and Nextdoor.
• Influencers and UGC generated $300,000+ from 25+ activated creators and 200,000+ direct community interactions.
• Community activations added another $100,000 from money hunts, scavenger hunts, in-person events, and the fair.

Total measured impressions cleared 1,000,000 across all platforms. The 925% engagement spike was the increase in brand mentions and local conversation versus the pre-campaign baseline. A quiet financial institution became, for five weeks, the most talked-about brand in Kern County.

In 2025, the campaign won three Diamond Awards in the Public Relations category at the America’s Credit Unions Marketing & Business Development Conference, a national honor.

In February 2025, Greet Seven Oaks Magazine published a two-page feature on Reliable PR titled “From Mystery to Movement: The Four Secrets Behind Cashsquatch’s Viral Campaign Success.” The article was written at the publisher’s request. We did not pitch it.

The Takeaway

This was not a social media campaign. This was a full-scale public relations operation.

We built mystery around a character. We coordinated 25+ influencers. We manufactured earned media coverage across every local news station. We activated the community through live events and scavenger hunts. We delivered a reveal that tied everything back to the client’s actual mission, financial literacy for young people.

The result: $1.2M+ in earned media value, 1,000,000+ impressions, 25+ minutes of prime news coverage, a 925% spike in engagement, three Diamond Awards in Public Relations, and $0 in paid media.

Ready for your brand to be the story?