Be Tick Smart
Vermont has one of the highest rates of tick-borne disease in the country. Over the past decade, reported cases of tick-bite illness in the state have climbed more than 250%, and more than half of blacklegged ticks collected in Vermont have tested positive for at least one disease. The Vermont Department of Health came to us with a clear goal: shift Vermonters from passive awareness into consistent prevention. Be Tick Smart is the multi-year, multi-channel campaign we built to build this awareness, organized around a four-step framework anyone can remember. Protect. Check. Remove. Watch.
“We appreciate Hark’s creative, collaborative approach to the Be Tick Smart campaign. They understood our goals and helped us share key public health information in an engaging way that encourages action. The result is a campaign that truly resonates with Vermonters.”
A paid media plan ran across several channels in two seasonal waves, timed to Vermont’s tick calendar. We used Google, Meta, Reddit, Spotify, YouTube, and broadcast radio ads to reach Vermonters in the car, on the trail, at the office, or in their own backyard.
Paid Media
Each platform was scoped to a specific behavior and a specific audience. Google Search and YouTube targeted high-intent keywords and outdoor-interest segments. Meta ads ran clear, relatable visuals of pets, kids, and outdoor scenes. Reddit got native-feeling sponsored posts inside Vermont-specific subreddits. Audio spots were kept to 15 or 30 seconds, action-forward, and ended with a clear CTA.
Print & Free Resources
Digital reach is one half of the work. The other is putting prevention information into hands and onto walls. We designed and produced a full system of printed materials, offered free of charge through the health department. Hiking and outdoors posters, a wallet-sized pocket card, a window cling for the bathroom mirror, sticker-and-magnet packs, a trail-sign reproduction, and a comprehensive booklet on Vermont’s tick species and the diseases they spread. Local health offices, libraries, veterinary clinics, and community organizations across the state order and distribute these year-round.
The gap wasn’t awareness. It was a sense that ticks were someone else’s problem.
Research the health department shared with us showed Vermonters know lyme disease exists and that it’s serious. What they don’t always feel is that the risk applies to them, on the walk to the mailbox or weeding a flowerbed. So the writing did one consistent job, which was to tie prevention to ordinary days. Walking the dog. Pulling brush. Letting the kids run around in the grass. Checking the cat when they come back inside.
The Message
Protect. Check. Remove. Watch. The four-step framework became the campaign’s spine and showed up everywhere, from a fifteen-second radio spot to a multi-page booklet, from a clinic poster to an ad on Reddit. Holding it consistent across every channel let us layer reminders without confusing the call to action. Whether someone heard the campaign in the car, saw it on Instagram, picked up the pocket card at a vet’s office, or searched for tick removal at midnight, they landed on the same simple messaging.
Campaign Branding
Public health design often defaults to alarm. We went the other way. The Be Tick Smart visual system borrows from vintage national parks posters. Silhouetted figures against layered ridgelines, warm sunsets and twilight skies, hand-set headline type that feels printed rather than scrolled. The palette runs from deep evergreen and indigo to a high-contrast orange that carries the four-step CTA across every asset. It’s a look that feels like the Vermont people live in, and it gives prevention messaging the same dignity as the landscapes it’s asking people to enjoy safely.
Evergreen Performance
Across ad cycles, Be Tick Smart has put prevention messaging in front of Vermonters at substantial scale, driving steady traffic to the Vermont Health Department’s tick prevention pages and maintaining strong engagement once visitors arrived. The outdoor enthusiasts segment (parents, gardeners, hikers, anglers, farmers) has consistently been the most responsive audience across every channel in the mix. The campaign continues to refresh and run each spring through fall, the months when tick activity in Vermont peaks, and it remains a cornerstone of the department’s seasonal public health outreach.
