Field Museum: Bloodsuckers

Leo Burnett Department of Design
2023

The Field Museum approached Leo Burnett to create a marketing campaign for their latest hosted exhibition, Bloodsuckers: Legends to Leeches, on loan from the Royal Ontario Museum. The exhibit delves into the scientific wonders of nature’s real-life vampires – blood-feeding creatures like bats and mosquitos – and also explores their impact on mythology and storytelling.

The challenge was to design a campaign that attracts a wide variety of potential museum-goers, including science enthusiasts, fans of pop culture vampires, and people generally enthusiastic about the Halloween season, while still appealing to the museum’s core audience: family members of all ages. The team delivered a cohesive series of digital, OOH, and motion pieces that build upon the Field Museum’s established visual system while expanding the ways in which type and illustration are used. Inspired by advertising from the golden era of larger-than-life cinematic monsters and b-movie horror and science fiction, the result strikes a playful balance between fear and excitement.

EVP Head of Design
Alisa Wolfson
Associate Design Director
Jacob Etter
Illustrator
Jacob Etter
Copywriter
Hannah Nieves
Animator
Jacob Etter
Animator
Katrina Nelkin
Producer
Kaitlin Bucaro
Account Director
Lindsay Hrack
EVP Head of Business Leadership
Mark Burgess
Project link