Brief Explanation

Brake is a charity that educates drivers, and supports victims of road tragedy. While established in the UK, it was new to NZ and required increased awareness and support. Five lives are lost on NZ roads, every week. So we brought this statistic to life - by making contact with five families who had lost loved ones on the road. Then working with forensic scientists, and WETA Digital – we created images of these five people as they would have appeared today if they were still alive. Five Lifelike ‘portraits’ - unforgettable content that could spread through multiple ‘earned’ media channels.

Execution

Five New Zealanders are lost on our roads every week. Their families don’t just lose a loved one. They lose a future. Using the science of forensic age progression, Weta digital created five portraits of five road victims as they would look today. New Zealand’s most-watched current affairs show covered the launch on prime time television, detailing the process and stories behind the portraits, as well as the heart breaking moments when the families saw their loved ones again. The story created a significant national response. Within 24 hours, it was picked up by NZs highest rated breakfast TV show, and largest online news portal. This unpaid media – which also included an article in New Zealand’s highest circulating Women’s magazine – complimented the press outdoor and online components of the campaign. In just 5 days, with marketing budget of less than $50,000, we reached every New Zealander 1.4 times showing a return on investment of 24:1.

Results and Effectiveness

With less than $40,000, our campaign created an immediate, national response. • Within 24hrs our campaign was picked up NZ's most watched breakfast news show, largest newspaper and 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 had a reach equivalent to 1.4 times the New Zealand population • Volunteer registrations during Road Safety Week doubled • Brake received a 750% increase in general enquiries. • And best of all, in the month following our launch, we saw a 25% drop in road fatalities in New Zealand.

Creative Execution

We built a three layered plan: 1. Tell the story. We secured a fifteen minute editorial segment on the most watched TV current affairs show - delivering an audience of 567,000 people (one in eight NZers) at no cost, which then triggered a flow of editorial and social commentary in the following days. 2. Reinforce at home. Top magazines plus news and weather websites pointed to an online gallery – that could be shared on social media. 3. Remind outside. Street posters, mall placements and cinemas showing multiple portraits in series drove actual behaviour change behind the wheel.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Our core target audience was parents, with a female skew. They are a large audience, with a tendency to influence the behaviour of partners and older children. They would be more likely to be influenced and more likely to share this idea than other audience groups of equal size. We knew the creative execution would be powerful. So our media strategy was to interrupt our audience in their normal daily routine and to give the campaign the largest possible share of voice and ‘spread’ that our modest budget would allow.