FLASH DRIVING GAME

Bronze Spike

Case Film

Presentation Board

TitleFLASH DRIVING GAME
BrandNEW ZEALAND TRANSPORT AGENCY
Product / ServiceROAD SAFETY
CategoryA08. Best Use of Other Digital Platforms (Incl. Mobile Devices)
EntrantOMD Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
Advertising Agency CLEMENGER BBDO Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
Media Agency OMD Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
Entrant Company OMD Wellington, NEW ZEALAND

Credits

Name Company Position
Jon Pikersgill Clemenger Bbdo Writer
Sarah Jackson Clemenger Bbdo Art Director
Brigid Alkema Clemenger Bbdo Art Director
Philip Andrew Clemenger Bbdo Executive Creative Director
Linda Major Clemenger Bbdo Director Of Social Marketing
Thomas Scovell Clemenger Bbdo Strategic Planner
Henry Lyons Omd Insights Specialist
Will Innes Omd Digital Planner
Annabelle Wilkinson Omd Business Director
Emily Goulden Omd Account Director

Results and Effectiveness

Instead of a government branded safety message of no interest to the target, we formed communications that they specifically seek out. A massive 17% of the total NZ target audience of Male Drivers Aged 15-24 played for more than 3 minutes. That’s 1 in 6 youth drivers experiencing the game. 20,942 Likes and 715,516 story streams typically commenting “The ending creeped me out” FLASH achieved 37% more engagement compared to the previous most successful digital campaign. FLASH contributed to the largest reduction in NZ average speed in the last 5 years, and vehicles exceeding the speed limit decreasing by 6%.

Creative Execution

We have created a personal death experience in-game to change the way that young men think about speeding. Instead of a 200 kmp/h head-on collision resulting in just ‘3-seconds off lap time’ we show them the real consequences. We launched an online racing game ‘FLASH’. Players experience their own death by seeing their life flash before their eyes when their speeding car crashes. Before playing, they authorise Facebook access. Then, as the car inevitably rolls and shatters around them, they see photos from their personal Facebook gallery - images of their friends and family. Incredible use of technology makes the message surprising, personal and powerful. The launch of FLASH needed to take on the characteristics of the gaming category, not road safety. So FLASH was promoted via gaming sites, seeded into gaming blogs, video trailers aired on Youth TV, and at live Dub-Step gigs of the game soundtrack composer ‘Module’.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Young men account for over half of all speed related crashes in NZ. Bravado dares them to drive faster and they believe themselves invincible – road death will never happen to them. They enjoy driving fast, thus making it a difficult behaviour to change. The NZ Transport Agency endeavour to reinforce a safe driving message to this uninterested and unreceptive audience. But every year they don’t listen. The challenge was to find a new way to deliver a sensible driving message, to make them stop and think the unthinkable. The target are avid gamers. In the gaming world they speed, they crash, they die, and they start all over again. Death is commoditised by the latest ‘Gran Turismo’ and ‘Gods of War’. Our strategy was to put our target in the virtual driving seat and have them experience the emotion of their own death as a result of their speeding.