We adapted a native piece of site functionality into an interactive behaviour-change advertisement that turned the act of buying tickets to events into a commitment to being safer on our roads.

Typically, ticketing websites use captcha codes – distorted and crowded text, to prove buyers are in fact human and not computer bots. Bots can’t read text displayed as an image, but people can. So we replaced this obscure text with positive affirmations of safe road behaviour. Affirmations like ‘I won’t drink and drive’ and ‘I won’t text and drive’, which hopeful attendees would need to physically enter for themselves to finalise their ticket purchase. This worked on the notion that once someone writes down a belief and internalises it, they’ll go to greater lengths to ensure they keep it. By reinventing this utility we created a native behaviour-changing ad unit served to anyone planning to attend an event.

‘The Human Test’ worked in the same way as you’d expect a captcha to work – it presented itself at the time when you were buying tickets to an event. The difference being, instead of the messaging you were asked to type being obscure text and numbers, it was a clear affirmation that asked you to make a commitment to being safer on the road. This new use of media was integrated on the Ticketmaster Australia site, serving as both captcha and behaviour-change tool to prove you are human.

Over the summer of 2015, ticket buyers to over 171 events did ‘The Human Test’.

‘The Human Test’ worked on the premise that no pledge equalled no ticket. Each affirmation was strategically aligned to a relevant event, giving powerful new meaning to buying tickets and the process of proving you are human online. Not only did we overcome the challenge of a fractured media environment and hard-to-reach target, but by reinventing this utility we created a new behavioural change tool.