Five lives are lost on New Zealand roads, every week. Their families don’t just lose a loved one; they lose a lifetime of potential.

Our solution was to bring this statistic to life in a confronting and emotive way, in order to get drivers to consider the ongoing cost of one bad decision or lapse in concentration behind the wheel.

We took five children who had died in New Zealand road accidents. Then, with their families’ permission, we did something unique and powerful.

We created five photorealistic portraits of how these children would look if they were alive today.

Using the process of age progression and the FBI’s database of facial features as well as the science of forensic anthropology and information relating to facial structure gathered from photos of family members, a forensic specialist compiled composite images of these road victims.

Then, with the assistance of the world-renowned artistry of WETA digital, we created five 3D rendered models.

Weta Digital also had its own large database of skin textures that corresponded to people of different age groups, ethnicity and gender, so these CGI models could be used to create photo realistic portraits.

The most critical part of the project was ensuring that the final portraits would be respectful of the memories of those who had died, and would be received well by the families. Ensuring that the portraits we produced were scientifically accurate and photorealistic was our ultimate goal.

It is safe to say that we simply could not have achieved our creative output without data. As data contributed to the age progression that led to the 2D composite image and data also determined the skin texture and finer details of the finished portraits.

The Living Memories campaign created an immediate response:

• Within 24hrs our campaign was picked up by New Zealand's most watched breakfast news show, highest circulating newspaper, largest online news portal, and most popular women's magazine.

• Brake received an estimated $1,317,017 worth of free media and PR, delivering and a return on investment of 32:1

• In just 5 days we achieved a reach equal to 1.4 times the New Zealand population.

• Brake received a 750% increase in general enquiries.

• Volunteer registrations during Road Safety Week doubled.

• The month following our launch saw a 25% drop in road fatalities in New Zealand (compared to the same period the previous year)

In order to create photorealistic portraits of past child road victims as they would look today we used data in a number of ways.

Firstly our forensic age progression expert utilised the FBI’s database of facial features.

Forensic age progression also incorporates the science of forensic anthropology.

In the final stages of creating photo realistic 3D models WETA digital used their own database of skin texture relative to age, ethnicity and gender.

We wanted to create a scientifically accurate photorealistic age progression of five child road victims as they would look today - as a unique and highly emotive way to bring home the true cost of one bad decision behind the wheel.

We began the process by engaging an independent researcher, who accessed 20 years of media archives to identify families who had lost children to road crashes. Then we filtered these results to select those who would help prevent these tragedies from happening to others - and collected multiple photographs of every child, and close relatives, at different stages of their life.

Our forensic specialist then began the process of age progression. Using the information garnered from family photos and his knowledge of forensic anthropology as well as the FBI‘s massive database of human features he predicted how his subjects would age, and created a 2D composite of how the child would look today.

Weta Digital then began the process of creating a 3D model, using it’s own database of skin textures from different age groups, ethnicity and gender to apply finer details to the model and produce photorealistic and scientifically accurate 3D models that would become the finished portraits.

Brake is a charity that educates drivers and supports victims of road tragedy. While established in the UK, this largely volunteer organisation is new to New Zealand.

Brake’s limited public activity revolves around their annual Road Safety Week. For that initiative to be successful – and to maximise our modest budget – we needed a uniquely powerful idea that would attract significant unpaid media.

Our goal was to drive nationwide attention, and raise Brake’s awareness and engagement – around the true cost of one wrong decision on the road.

With a broad target audience, our message required multiple channels - both paid and unpaid - to successfully work together.