Haunted Door for WD-40

WD-40 breaks their code and helps your door squeak

A WD-40 spraying product from the can.
The WD-40 logo.

On the spookiest day of the year, we simultaneously gave homeowners an audible trick-or-treat enhancer and a subconscious reminder to lubricate their hinges.

Service

Improving experiences

Industry

Household products
Home improvement

Product

Mobile app
Direct mailer

Timeline

2 months

50%

Response rate
Based off 200 pieces mailed to reporters and influencers

Over 100

Media outlets
With unique story coverage

1.4M+

Dollars in earned media coverage

57 million

Earned impressions

The challenge

While WD-40 is top of mind when it comes to household lubricants, it often goes unused for months despite being in the house. We needed to get people thinking about the creaks in their doors, and reaching for a can of WD-40 again.

Our approach

On Halloween, the average front door opens over 50 times – more than any other day – and it’s the one night people want their door to creak. So, we did the exact opposite of what WD-40 is famous for. We glorified loud hinges by programming WD-40’s Haunted Door: the only motion-activated sound-effect app that creaks whenever you open your door to trick-or-treaters.

Poster explaining how BIMM came up with the Haunted Door app idea for WD-40, how the app works, and its success.
Screen captures of the Haunted Door app pages for WD-40.
The mailer used to hang phones on the door handle to produce creaky door sounds through the Haunted Door app.

The outcome

By offering an extra creaky door SFX app, the brand found a way to
re-heighten awareness of your own existing, albeit less dramatic, creaky doors throughout your home that could actually use some
WD-40.

Fun fact: Upon launch, WD-40 occupied one of the top spots for ‘creaky door’ Google searches, completely organically. During the week of Halloween, it increased.

Man presenting work on a white board to his two co-workers.

More outside-the-box problem solving

Check out other projects created by the experts at BIMM.