To reinforce their position as an expert on all things insect, Terminix—the largest termite and pest control company in the world—launched Harry’s Big Adventure, an educational website for parents, teachers and children. The star of the site, an anthropomorphic praying mantis named Harry, is the subject of an offline traveling tour with events at children's museums, science centers and other venues across the Southeast. Originally a blog, Harry’s Big Adventure was transformed into a full-scale website to build upon the success of the tour, to engage those who may be new to Harry's adventure, and to add a deeper level of educational content.

We had two primary objectives in mind when we developed harrysbigadventure.com:

• Present educational content about insects in a fun, engaging way
• Build upon momentum of offline events, extending the interaction with Harry and, consequently, Terminix

To help achieve those objectives, the website centers on two main areas:

Learning Center. This section of the site houses "Bugopedia" which is a library of information about different insects, and it also includes downloadable lesson plans for teachers that are written to national educational standards. In addition, teachers can also use an interactive form to request a Terminix expert to come to their class for a bug show and tell.

Games and Fun. This section was designed to educate, entertain, and keep Harry (and Terminix) top of mind. The games intend to teach children about specific aspects of insects and help encourage repeat visits. To keep Harry's Big Adventure top of mind, screensavers, wallpapers and coloring pages feature illustrations of Harry, his illustrated friends and campaign branding.

After only 90 days live, this website is a huge success:

• Engagement: The site has excellent engagement metrics, performing 25% higher than similar-sized sites in the educational website category in terms of time spent on site and pages viewed per visit.
• Interaction Extension: A majority of the site's visitors come from areas where offline events were held, and traffic spikes correlate with Harry’s appearances—indicating that people are extending their interaction with Harry's Big Adventure beyond the events.

• 2009 IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) Gold Quill Merit Award