Situation

On the cusp of the Christmas holidays, the death toll on Victoria’s roads was up by 10% on the previous year.

‘The Lucky Ones’ road safety enforcement campaign was into its third year on air and was showing the early signs of wear-out.

It shows, that unscheduled roadside stop could be what saves your life and the lives of those you love.

Brief

TAC needed an impactful stunt that would draw attention to that ‘lucky moment’ at the heart of the ATL campaign, and give it a new emotional angle that would attract public and media attention.

They needed to provide clear education about why Victorians should expect to see increased police presence on the roads over the holiday season.

Objectives

[] Reinvigorate ‘The Lucky Ones’ campaign

[] Generate an emotional involvement with road safety in the lead up to Christmas

[] Drive coverage in the news media

It’s hard to feel lucky when you get pulled over by the police for breaking the road rules.

In that moment, the frustration of a fine means you can’t see that the consequences of not getting caught could be far, far worse.

‘Press Rewind’ confronts drivers with that potentially tragic reality in real life and creates a ‘sliding doors’ moment; a glimpse of how changing their attitude to police enforcement - and their behaviour behind the wheel - could change the outcome.

Target audience:

Victorian drivers aged 18+

Insight:

While the TVC is highly impactful, its logic hinges on convincing drivers that getting caught by police is a positive. That’s a difficult link to explain ‘in the moment’. Nobody feels lucky when they get a fine.

Approach:

We challenged insight by using the emotion of Christmas to get drivers to consider their responsibility to loved ones.

By pairing a confronting Christmas crash scene with augmented reality technology, we took drivers ‘back in time’ to prove how police intervention can stop road trauma.

And by that point, the logic was inescapable; changing your behaviour to drive safely was the best way to avoid any tragic consequences on the roads over Christmas.

By underpinning the activation with an emotional trigger at each stage, we changed behaviour and drew media attention when it was needed most.

‘Press Rewind’ was teased across social media by showing the TV ad with a twist; it was played in reverse.

Then, the people of Melbourne and Ballarat awoke to the same model car, wrecked in a high pedestrian traffic location.

Passers-by were drawn in by the haunting soundscape emerging from the wreckage.

Adding to the impact, augmented reality let them watch the wreck in reverse…and share the ‘sliding doors’ moment when police intervene to stop it happening.

Over the next 3 days, a vigil was held at the crash scene, encouraging many more to pause and reflect on the lives lost to road trauma in 2022.

The Christmas road toll is an annual media focus, but the real-world impact of ‘Press Rewind’ generated blanket news media coverage at a critical time.

Presented as one of TAC’s most impactful integrated campaigns, the experience exceeded targets by capturing major earned media in a busy news week in the lead up to Christmas.

A total of 69 unique and 62 syndicated reports mentioned TAC’s The Lucky Ones Get Caught road safety campaign between 15 December and 13 January 2023 (source isentia Media Monitoring Services.) The Press Rewind Activation was the main story driver over the summer period for TAC brand.

The activation delivered the following:

- $3.3m earned media

- 3.8m reach

- 2m social impressions

The confronting crash scene combined with the AR experience prompted:

- Driving behaviour change in over 80% of people surveyed.

- A media impact score of 7.0. Well above average.

- Media tone score of 98% positive.