Belgian communications agency Duval Guillaume Modem is all about big ideas.

Only ideas are the carriers of new thoughts and can influence behaviour, the agency says. Ideas are what differentiate human beings from other animals and computers. Ideas originate from creative processes, not from procedures.

The award-winning agency is living up to this ideal with a video about identity theft its created as part of a campaign to promote safe online banking in Belgium and raise awareness of the www.safeinternetbanking.be website where tips for using internet banking safely are available.

The video tells the story of how one man’s entire life was easily taken over with the help of information he himself carelessly spreads across the social web, starting with the theft of his financial details and culminating in the cloning of his personal appearance through an impressive make-up job as the narrative presents you with a plausible scenario showing how you can make it easy for someone to literally steal your whole life.

Would you panic while internet crooks took over your life? We put one real victim through the test. We scared the hell out of him by gradually taking over his life. His freaked out reactions, should urge people to be very vigilant and never to share personal and banking information by mail or by telephone.

(If you don’t see the video above, watch it on YouTube.)

“Never share banking information, even by phone. Be vigilant with personal information” are the core messages in the video story.

Identity theft and helping consumers understand the genuine risks of such crime and what they can do to safeguard themselves is a hot topic everywhere. While an approach like this may not work in every country, hard-hitting and credible story-telling is exactly what’s needed if only to penetrate the noise and get your signal noticed.

It certainly is imaginative.

(Via Kris Hoet and AdAge.com)

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