Headlight InternationalTop 10 tips for effective road safety advertising

© Nigel Keats and Lew Bentley 2012.Not to be reproduced or distributed without the permission of the authors

Who Are We?

Headlight International provides specialist consulting services for the development of effective road safety advertising campaigns.

We work in a very collaborative way, with the intention of successfully transfering knowledge and capability to local city and/or country’s lead road safety agency, as well as their local suppliers and partners.

This approach is in keeping with the knowledge transfer objectives of organisations like the World Bank and WHO.

We can help local teams build the campaign framework, including the communication strategy, creative development, media strategy and campaign measurement using best practice principles developed in countries like Australia, New Zealand, UK and Ireland.

We can also advise on strategies to achieve funding and sponsorship, plus low-cost and no-cost enhancements for advertising programs.

These are campaigns designed to create positive behavior change on a mass community scale in order to save lives and reduce the public cost and harm of road trauma.

The two Headlight International Directors - Nigel Keats and Lew Bentley - have over 20 years combined experience in New Zealand developing many different road safety advertising campaigns for issues such as speed reduction, promoting safety belts and child restraints, discouraging drink/drug driving, motorcycle safety, safer vehicles, intersection safety and driver distraction.

We’ve shared our shills and learnings in countries including Argentina, UAE, India, Tunisia and Oman

Headlight International is an independent company not affiliated with any communications agency.

Nigel Keats

Lew Bentley

1 - Be very specific about what you want people to do

• Generic messages such as ‘drive safely’, ‘be courteous’, or ‘be careful’ are meaningless.

• Most people already believe their driving to be good and safe, even if they’re exceeding the speed limits or not wearing a helmet or safety belt. The message needs to be clear and unambiguous such as ‘Slow down’ or “Always wear a helmet’

2 - Base campaigns around a core motivator of behavior change

• This could be risk of death or serious injury to the driver or others (their family, innocent children etc). It could be to amplify the perceptions of enforcement and consequences of getting caught, or, garnering social pressure from others against their current road user behavior

3 - Avoid opt-out

• This is one of the most critical aspects of achieving behavior change. Road safety is a product that most people don’t want to buy. They will commonly look for opportunities to dismiss the safety message and reinforce their current behavior – believing that they are good drivers.

• Common issues with this are that they don’t identify with the driver in the advertisement. He may be younger, older or driving an inferior car - therefore they’re a safer driver.

• The second issue is avoiding showing driving behavior where the viewers says “ I could have swerved”, “I could have stopped” so “That would never happen to me”

4 - Be realistic

• Advertising agencies love to develop overly clever or arty advertising. Also, from much experience, the use of statistics and unreal situations, seldom works. People need to see people like themselves, their own driving behavior and the negative consequences they could have.

5 – Raising awareness and changing attitudes isn’t enough

• Often simple requests or instructions for people to wear a safety belt or slow down are not enough. Also messages such as those from celebrities, victims and even authorities may gain attention and even agreement with the issue. But, they do not necessarily do enough to show the majority of viewers why they should change their own behavior and empower them to do so.

6 - An in-depth understanding of the target audience is critical

. Communications have to reflect the audience, their attitudes, core fears, their current behavior, their influences and perceptions of enforcement. As mentioned, they need to see themselves in the advertisement

7 - Focus on the biggest issues and specific behavior that are ideally both

measurable and enforceable• An approach of targeting the

biggest risks is critical. The road safety issues, the people, the regions of your country where you can make the biggest gains for your money

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Safety

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Example only

8 - Coverage, frequency and time - sufficient media exposure is very

important • It is where most of the investment in road

safety advertising should go.• A key mistake we see authorities make

with road safety advertising is attempting to try and do too much and not succeed in achieving significant exposure and therefore behavior change with any single problem.

• High coverage levels are required if you are to influence a high proportion of the population and repeating the message is important.

• Long-term campaigns are required to prompt the audience to adopt the correct behavior every time they’re on the road until it becomes habitual. Consumers’ recall of one-off weekly or monthly campaigns soon disappears

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Tarps Free RecallLikeability (Males 16-24) Relevance (Males 16-24)Change Attitude (Males 16-24) Free and prompted recall

TARPS

9 - Surprise and surround the audience with the road safety message

• It is important to stand out from other advertising and be remembered, including at what we call “moments of truth” such as when they’re on the road driving, or when they’re drinking alcohol

10 - Use emotion – and lots of it

• The best communications connect with people deeply and powerfully and to leave them thinking “I don’t want that to happen to me”

Advertising Can Help Reduce Road Trauma

If done properly, advertising can produce one of the greatest returns on investment of any road safety intervention.

It offers some significant benefits:

1. Relatively quick and low-cost to implement compared to road or vehicle engineering or greater enforcement levels.

2. Stimulates public debate and raises the perceived importance of road safety issues.

3. Sets social norms and expectations of road safety behavior.

4. Complements and reinforces other interventions (e.g. engineering & enforcement).

5. Can deal with issues that engineering and enforcement are unable to (e.g. fatigue).

6. Can be a catalyst for legislative change and improved enforcement.

7. An investment in long-term, sustainable behavior change (life of person and inter-generational).

8. Has potential for some quick gains.

Road Safety Advertising Has Particular Challenges

Road Safety advertising is not like other advertising.Consequently, it is easy to get it wrong, wasting precious funding and falling short on road safety goals.

With Commercial Advertising… With Road Safety Advertising…

People are interested and want to buy in the category People like to avoid the subject and opt out

The aim is to focus on the positives The focus needs to raise the risks and consequences

You’re usually selling a brand The message is the brand (e.g. “Slow Down)

The goal is to raise awareness and attract interest Awareness is not enough to have an effect on road safety – you need to work at a level that motivates behavior change

Exaggeration and creative license is used to entertain and motivate It is important to use reality to make people pay attention, see themselves in the advertising message and mitigate their urge to opt out from it

Road Safety Advertising Best Practice

Global Road Safety Partnership: Road Safety Best Practices, 2005

“The effectiveness of publicity campaigns, when they are backed up by enforcement, is shown by substantial reductions in the frequency and severity of casualty crashes in Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe.”

GRSP Best Practice principles for road safety campaigns are:1. Use of an underlying theoretical model2. Use research to assess the issues to be addressed in the

campaign3. Support the campaign with legislation, enforcement and

public relations4. Adapt the use of media and messages to the specific

campaign5. Carefully manage the intensity, duration, timing and exposure

of the campaign

Headlight International has a practical understanding and considerable experience in all of these aspects, and we are available to share this knowledge.

How We WorkClients only deal with our Directors. We bring a powerful combination of international Best Practice thinking

and our personal experience.We work alongside local teams in two main ways:1. Facilitating a comprehensive Road Safety Advertising Training Course

– A general introduction and context for Best Practice road safety advertising– Understanding and insights about how people drive and a framework for how to influence driving

behavior– A guide for how to create successful campaigns– A menu of specific insights and international examples for each of the main road safety issues (eg

speed, drink driving, safety belts, child restraints, helmets, fatigue etc)2. Working with the local team to develop their own Road Safety advertising campaign using a simple, but

effective process. – Assess goals & priorities - identify which road safety issues to address.– Review local capacity and resources.– Adapt international Best Practice as appropriate.– Develop specific strategies & tactics to address road safety issues with the local teams.– Align resources & influencers (e.g. Police enforcement, public and media) to maximize impact.– Guide local teams to develop & implement program - including creative, media, funding and

measurement.Our aim is to deliver:

– An effective road safety advertising program in place quickly and efficiently.– The transfer of international Best Practice knowledge & capability to local teams.– Practical solutions specifically designed for the local environment.– Positive behavior change that improves road safety and reduces the cost and harm of road trauma.– Measurable outcomes - reduced social cost and an effective return on investment.

For further information, please contact us at:Nigel.keats@headlight.co.nz or lew.bentley@headlight.co.nz

Skype: Nigel.keats100