Q5id — Guardian Broadcast Campaigns
The problem
Identity verification is abstract and slightly alarming. A campaign has to make it concrete without making it frightening.
The approach
Anchor the product in a recognisable person whose credibility does the explaining — a safety advocate for one campaign, a familiar broadcast face for the other.
What was built
Two named campaigns: Guardian with Elizabeth Smart, and a second with John O'Hurley. 60-second broadcast spots, 15-second subscriber spots, and social cutdowns.
The outcome
Delivered for national broadcast between 2019 and 2023.
Q5id, founded by Steve Larson, builds identity-verification technology; Guardian is its consumer-facing product. Gavin produced the video campaigns behind it between 2019 and 2023.
Two campaigns are documented in the production archive. The first is fronted by Elizabeth Smart, whose association with personal-safety advocacy carries the product’s argument without the ad having to make it. The second is fronted by John O’Hurley — J. Peterman on Seinfeld, host of Dancing with the Stars — a familiar broadcast presence for a different register entirely. Both ran as 60-second broadcast spots with 15-second subscriber cuts and social versions.
Steve Larson is the same founder behind F-Comply, where the working relationship continued into 2024–26.
Two national campaigns for the same product, fronted by two very different faces.