Raytheon: Tracking Down America’s Most Wanted

Ingalls Campaign Reveals How the NightSight Camera Assists Cops
BOSTON–During the Persian Gulf War, Raytheon Co.’s missile systems hastened the defeat of Saddam Hussein. Today, the company’s products are helping police departments put domestic bad guys out of commission.
Initially developed for military use, the NightSight Thermal Imaging Camera registers images by homing in on their heat signatures. Its application in police work is the focus of a series of dramatic print ads created by Ingalls Advertising in Boston.
The executions take the form of fictionalized police reports based on real-life events. The tagline: “NightSight. See the unseen.”
One ad shows a case folder with a police report that tells the story of a burglar’s capture one dark night. Copy describes how police officers scanned a densely wooded area with the NightSight camera, spotted the perpetrator and turned their flashlights in the opposite direction. “The thief, thinking he had not been seen, tried to escape. Moments later, [police] sprang out of the dark and arrested him,” the copy concludes. The thief’s booking photo is shown, along with the line: “Remanded to county prison.”
The ads also include a toll-free information number.
The campaign is running in magazines of interest to law enforcement professionals. Believing this particular group of potential customers to be inherently skeptical, Ingalls creative staffers chose to focus on what is most important to police officers: apprehending criminals.
The campaign’s copy and visuals were designed to be significantly dramatic to cut through the clutter and grab cops’ attention, said copywriter Martin Davidson.
“An ad stands little chance of competing with what police officers see every day. So we attempted to leverage that drama and put the product in a believable context,” Davidson said.
Rich Wallace handled art direction. Steve Bautista and Rob Rich served as creative directors. Scott Keith was the photographer.
The Lexington, Mass.-based client spent about $6.5 million on advertising last year and more than $2 million through the first five months of 1998, per Competitive Media Reporting.