Especially for young audiences, branded entertainment in the United States is vitally important to breaking through the industry, and even more so when brands find themselves challenged to affect different behavioral outcomes. Saturated with thousands of commercial messages every day, from branded vending machines in schools to banner ads on social media channels, young Americans struggle to digest a fraction of the information marketers throw their way. Unless it’s relevant to their lives and delivered in a way that adds high entertainment value.

This understanding was the inspiration behind AT&T’s 2012 campaign built around giving teens the virtual experience of texting and driving. Using 3D gaming technology, the company created a driving simulator and then put teens “behind the wheel” to experience the results of text-distracted driving.

AT&T was driven to create the gaming-centered campaign by an overwhelming case for change. Texting is a beloved activity, especially among teenagers still new to driving. The intersection of teen driving and texting has been particularly dangerous. Of the more than 100,000 vehicle crashes each year (National Safety Council), many involve teens and young adults who send on average five times as many text messages as a typical adult. (Virginia Tech Transportation Research).

AT&T creatively developed and deployed an experiential message delivery system that its teen and young adult target audience would be naturally drawn to – video gaming. By wrapping its message of the dangers of texting while driving in this virtual experience, complete with full-on arcade driving features, AT&T utilized the simulator to literally put teens in the driver’s seat and sent text prompts to their own phones for them to respond. All it took were a few milliseconds and taps at their phone for the point about texting and driving to come crashing through. Screech audio. Bam. Game over. Message received.

It Can Wait is making a true difference in changing behavior:

• More than 1.2m people have taken the pledge to not text while driving.

• 97% of teens now say that texting while driving is dangerous.

• One in three people say that texting while driving messages have affected their driving habits.

• Awareness of the ICW message increased 26% during the campaign.

Supporting results indicate the momentum the campaign generated:

• 4,000+ media placements generating 1bn+ impressions.

• 250m unique user accounts across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

• 153m+ Twitter accounts reached with #ItCanWait

• 102m+ unique Facebook impressions

• Nearly 7m YouTube views

AT&T was recognized as taking a bold stand on the issue:

• The campaign had a significant impact on customers' willingness to recommend AT&T, as promoters went up by 15% and detractors decreased by 23%.