The brief
MITRE — a nonprofit operating at the intersection of government and innovation — was launching The Bear Den: an internal competition where employees could pitch ideas for a chance to win $25,000. The challenge wasn't the format. It was getting people to actually sign up.
Awareness campaigns for internal initiatives live or die on creative. And a government contractor environment isn't exactly known for big swings.
"The hardest brief isn't the complicated one — it's making someone at their desk on a Tuesday stop, pay attention, and decide to do something they didn't plan to do."
My role
Responsibilities
Concepting, brainstorming, illustration, Photoshop compositing, campaign design
Creative approach
Two-phase teaser-to-reveal campaign built on wit — make them laugh before you make them act
Audience
MITRE employees — smart, analytical, not easily impressed by standard internal comms
The two-phase strategy
Phase 1 — Teaser
The bad idea comics
Three original Wall Street Journal-style editorial comics, each built around the theme of a genuinely bad idea. The punchline: signing up for The Bear Den is a very good one. Hand-drawn, dry, and deadpan — completely unexpected in an internal campaign context, and that contrast was exactly the point.
Phase 2 — Reveal
Bears in the movies
Photoshopped bears dropped into iconic movie posters — The Last Jedi, Game of Thrones, Good Will Hunting. Familiar imagery made strange, with Bear Den branding woven in. The kind of work that gets shared in a Slack channel, pinned to a break room wall, and talked about at lunch.
The work
The contrast between the two phases was intentional: dry and understated in the teaser, bold and pop-culture in the reveal. Together they built momentum — and made signing up feel like joining something worth joining.
3 hand-drawn editorial comics — bad idea teaser series
Bears photoshopped into The Last Jedi, Game of Thrones, Good Will Hunting
Bear Den identity — name, mark, campaign visual system
Rolled out internally across MITRE — phased teaser to reveal
Results
The best internal campaigns don't feel internal. They feel like something worth paying attention to. The Bear Den worked because it respected the audience's intelligence — and made them smile before it made them act.