Project Overview

Medical billing and coding isn't an obvious subject for entertaining social content. But hidden within the thousands of medical codes are some surprisingly strange, and sometimes funny, scenarios.

Partnering with DeVry's Social Media Director, we turned that insight into Hermie: an unlucky recurring character whose bizarre mishaps connected real medical codes to DeVry's Medical Billing & Coding program.

What began as a social campaign for a single program evolved into a recurring concept that ran for several years and eventually expanded into other DeVry program messaging.

My Role

As Creative Lead, I partnered with the Social Media Director to develop the campaign concept and led the creative from initial idea through final execution.

I created the Hermie character and developed the stories around each medical code, translating those concepts into storyboards before producing the finished social videos.

My work included:

• Creative concept development

• Character design and visual direction

• Story and scenario development

• Storyboarding

• Motion design and animation

• Music selection and timing

• Final video production

The Challenge

Making Medical Coding Scroll-Stopping.

The opportunity came from the medical codes themselves. Among the thousands of codes were unusually specific scenarios, being sucked into a jet engine, burned by water skis on fire, or struck by a football, that felt more like story prompts than technical classifications.

That became the creative opening: instead of simply explaining medical codes, we could turn them into stories.

Meet Hermie

A Character Built for Bad Luck.

To turn the idea into a repeatable campaign, we needed a character who could connect one bizarre scenario to the next.

Meet Hermie, named after DeVry founder Herman DeVry. He was designed as an endlessly unlucky character who always seemed to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. An encounter with Cupid, an unexpected accident, or another unlikely mishap could all become the setup for his next injury, and the medical code behind it.

Hermie gave the campaign a recognizable personality while creating a simple storytelling device that could support an ongoing series of social content.

Building the Story

From Medical Code to Storyboard.

Once the campaign framework was established, each Hermie episode began with a medical code and a new unfortunate scenario.

I developed the story around the code, mapping out the setup, mishap, and reveal before moving into animation. Storyboarding helped establish the sequence, timing, and visual beats while creating a clear bridge between the entertainment and the Medical Billing & Coding message.

This process gave each episode its own story while maintaining a consistent structure across the campaign.

Creating a Repeatable Campaign

One Character. Endless Bad Luck.

Hermie was designed to work beyond a single execution. The character became a consistent thread across the campaign, while each new medical code created an opportunity for a different story, setting, and mishap.

That repeatable structure gave us the freedom to keep the content fresh without reinventing the campaign each time. Hermie could encounter a completely new situation while the underlying idea remained familiar: something goes wrong, an unusual medical code connects the injury back to Medical Billing & Coding, and the story leads into the DeVry program message.

Over time, that framework allowed Hermie to become a recurring character across DeVry’s social channels.

Bringing Hermie to Life

From Storyboard to Motion.

With each story mapped out, I brought Hermie’s latest misadventure to life in After Effects, building the animation, refining the pacing and transitions, and pairing the motion with music to support the humor and timing of each story.

The finished videos carried the viewer from Hermie’s mishap to the corresponding medical code, then connected the story back to DeVry’s Medical Billing & Coding program.

Expanding the Character

Beyond Medical Billing & Coding.

As Hermie became more recognizable, the character began to extend beyond the Medical Billing & Coding campaign that originally inspired him.

We adapted Hermie to support other DeVry program messaging, using the same character and storytelling personality in new contexts. What began as a creative solution for one program had grown into a flexible character that could connect with audiences across different areas of the university.

This evolution showed that the idea had value beyond a single campaign, Hermie had become a recognizable part of DeVry’s social content.

The Result

Turning Entertainment Into Engagement.

What began as a creative way to build awareness for DeVry’s Medical Billing & Coding program grew into a recurring social campaign that ran for several years. Hermie became a recognizable concept across DeVry’s social channels and within the organization, eventually expanding into other program messaging.

Monthly reporting also demonstrated the campaign’s ability to drive engagement. One January Medical Billing & Coding video significantly outperformed the previous MB&C video:

+738% REACH

+432% VIDEO VIEWS

+223% CLICKS TO BLOG

January Medical Billing & Coding video compared with the previous MB&C video.

The campaign’s longevity, performance, and ability to expand into new program messaging demonstrated the strength of a simple, repeatable creative idea.

Conclusion

Finding the Idea That Makes It Work.

Hermie reinforced the value of finding a simple creative idea inside a challenging marketing problem. By turning an unexpected detail, bizarre medical codes, into a recurring character and storytelling platform, we created a campaign that could entertain while still connecting back to the program.

For me, the project brought together concept development, character design, storytelling, art direction, and motion into one end-to-end creative process. It also reinforced how a strong idea can grow beyond a single execution when it’s simple enough to understand and flexible enough to evolve.