Rural drink driving is a major issue. While the drink driving message is changing attitudes and reducing crash statistics in urban areas, this is not the case in rural New Zealand. The conviction and crash statistics in these areas is disproportionately high.Research has indicated that rural drink drivers are paranoid about one thing only - getting stopped and losing their licence. The fear of being caught and losing their right to drive is therefore our most potent persuasive device.

The client brief was to make the invisible visible, and convince rural drink drivers that their chance of getting caught by an unmarked police car was high.

Our strategy was to install an integrated campaign in a rural community and tightly link this with an actual unmarked Police car operation. A three-phase campaign model was developed as follows:Pre Operation Phase: established the threat of being stopped and sowed doubt and fear in the community. Postcards delivered and ambient campaign installed.Operation Window Phase: unmarked Police car operation occurs.Post Operation Phase: replays to the community the results of enforcement activity via non-personalised household drops and press advertisements.