The Brief

Young guys from New Zealand drive fast. We needed them to slow down. They understood that speed can kill. The problem was, they simply didn’t believe it would ever happen to them. We made sure it did.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

We seduced them with an online racing game called Flash. To personalise the experience, players signed in to Facebook. The race is fast and furious. We stack on the pressure. They stack on the speed. It gets hard to stay in control. The car loses control, and they crash. Suddenly the player’s life flashes before their eyes: friends, family and special moments. As the images fade, the words ‘You only get one life. Slow down.’ appear. Players could only play the ‘game’ once. Players could only play the ‘game’ once.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Flash received 125,709 unique visitors, with 38,099 of them playing for the full three minute experience. The game received 20,942 Facebook ‘Likes’ and generated 715,616 story streams with comments such as, “Awesome, ha I get it now.” Better yet, it seems the message got through. Flash contributed to the largest reduction in the New Zealand average road speed in five years, and vehicles exceeding the speed limit decreased by 6%.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

We know young guys are online, so our message should to be online. But we also knew that they’re not going to choose to watch anti-speed advertising. To get our message across, we had to surprise them. Our solution was to hijack something we knew they’d love — gaming. We also knew that if we wanted the message to really hit home, it needed to be personal. This is where Facebook came in. Connecting to Facebook allowed us access to players’ photo albums. This was how we achieved the ‘Life flashing before your eyes’ moment at the end of the game.