Stytch Brand Campaign: #GoPasswordless
The Challenge:
Stytch had powerful authentication technology, but almost no brand awareness outside developer circles. The category was crowded with tools. Nobody owned the emotional story.
Passwords are a universal frustration. Stytch needed to turn a technical feature into a cultural idea.
Stytch Bus Shelter - It’s time to kill the password.
The Strategy:
We didn’t sell the API. We sold the future.
Instead of marketing a developer toolkit, we positioned Stytch as the voice of a passwordless internet; something every human understands instantly.
The goal:
build awareness beyond engineering
make authentication feel human
give the category a rallying cry
Stytch billboard - The entire internet needs a password reset.
Creative Platform: #GoPasswordless
Passwords suck. Everyone agrees. So we built a campaign around the universal hatred of passwords and the optimism of eliminating them.
Funny. Human. Category-first. A startup brand that sounded bigger than a startup.
Execution: We took over San Francisco
Out-of-Home
Billboards, buses, and shelters across San Francisco turned password frustration into public storytelling.
“It’s time to kill the password.”
“The entire internet needs a password reset.”
OOH targeted developers, founders, and the broader tech ecosystem where authentication decisions happen.
Experiential Installations:
Custom bus shelters layered with handwritten Post-its visualized password overload, turning the problem into art people stopped to decode.
Brand Voice + Content:
A mix of humor, profanity, and humanity reframed authentication from a technical requirement into a cultural movement.
Results:
The campaign transformed Stytch from “another tool” into a category voice. Impact included:
83% increase in web traffic in the first week
170% increase in organic search traffic
181% increase in paid search impressions
257% increase in clicks in week one
Executives and founders reached out directly after seeing the work. Sales teams cited the campaign as a driver of high-profile conversions.
Seriously? Who names their dog Snowball?
Why It Worked:
Everyone hates passwords. The insight wasn’t technical; it was emotional.
We turned frustration into a shared belief. Instead of marketing an authentication infrastructure, we marketed a future people wanted to live in.
Take advantage of media opportunities. These double boards were a great way to keep the Go Passwordless message fresh.
About Division of Labor:
Division of Labor is a San Francisco advertising agency specializing in brand and launch campaigns for Series A–C tech startups.
We help emerging companies:
build awareness
shape category narratives
turn product features into cultural ideas
Startups like Stytch partner with us to move from “tool” to “brand people talk about.”
Passwords and profanity go hand-in-hand. A passwordless internet is much more child-friendly place.
Stytch is creating the passwordless internet. Don’t you just H8 long passwords?
Campaign Overview:
Stytch partnered with Division of Labor to launch a brand campaign promoting a passwordless future. The work repositioned authentication from a technical feature into a cultural idea through out-of-home, experiential, and digital storytelling, driving awareness, traffic, and enterprise interest.
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Division of labor is a top ad agency in San Francisco because we specialize in working with startups like Stytch. Startups who have obtained Series B funding or higher hire Division of Labor to build awareness, drive website traffic and increase conversions. And that’s exactly what this campaign did.
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People universally hate passwords. Trying to remember each individual password for each website and application we access can be infuriating. Stytch has created passwordless technology that developers can build into the authentication portion of their sites, apps and products. And even though the target market for Stytch is a narrow, B2B audience, the awareness we generated proved incredibly valuable to Stytch. Their sales team specifically sited the campaign as a driver of many high profile conversions. And founder Reed McGinley wrote a pointed article on the value of brand awareness HERE.
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This Stytch outdoor campaign has proven to be incredibly successful for Stytch at building brand awareness, driving website traffic and increasing conversions. CEOs reached out to the company founder saying they had seen the campaign and wanted to talk. Website traffic shot up:
> 83% increase in web traffic in first week
> Organic search traffic increased 170%
> Paid search impressions increased 181%
> 257% increase in clicks first week alone