It seems to me that nowadays every man and his dog is involved in road safety. It used to be that the IAM , RoSPA , Road Safety officers, police and your local driving instructors, were the people who gave road safety advice. Today there are numerous road safety charities, Fire Service, AA, RAC, Leasing companies, all trying to get their message across to road users of all ages.
I am not criticising any of above or anyone else who wants to promote road safety, but I do wish they would all try working together. They all seem to have their own agenda and some (but certainly not all) will not promote another company or organisations ideas and messages. For example: E-Training World produced a free to use interactive website on the dangers of drink driving www.drinkdrivingkills.com and although many organisations have placed links to this site, others have made excuses such as; “We are not allowed to link to non government websites”, “I will have to put it to the Council of Management” – that was 18 months ago!
We all have ideas on how to get our message across, and we have all seen those government adverts which use shock tactics e.g. the current advert where a man sees a dead child everywhere, the slogan says “Kill your speed or live with the consequences”. Others tend to use statistics to get noticed and a few quote health & safety, often scaring employers to wrap their drivers up in cotton wool. The sad thing is unless you use shock tactics or your message is designed to scare the life out of the recipient, then it is unlikely to get much air-time or many column inches.
I would encourage those in the media to look at what everyone is doing in road safety and just occasionally promote those initiatives, which may not be shocking, controversial or from the usual government departments or road safety charities.
For example this video from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership doesn’t use shock tactics or any other method I describe above, it just gives a simple message that all age groups can understand.
This is the press release from Sussex Safer Roads Partnership.
A new technique for road safety advertising is ushered in with the launch of Embrace Life today (Wednesday 20 January) in cinema and online at www.embracethis.co.uk.
Embrace Life is the newest road safety product from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership, focusing on the use of seatbelts by vehicle drivers and passengers – a topic which continues to raise concern throughout the road safety profession both in the UK and across the EU.
Rather than concentrating on the consequences of a collision, the filmed product uses positive images and messages to reinforce the need to wear a seat belt, by placing the issue firmly in the family domain. The advert has been developed so that it can be viewed by anyone of any age.
Further to the departure from traditional consequences based advertising, Embrace Life has also been promoted through the use of graffiti across Brighton, East Sussex, as part of a drive to clean up local neighbourhoods.
Working with local artist Aroe and Brighton & Hove City Council’s Cityclean team, Embrace Life can now been seen across Brighton, covering areas previously adorned with unsightly tags. Aroe is one of the most high profile graffiti artists in the South East, and his involvement means that the promotion will act as a barrier to any further tagging. SSRP Communications Manager, Neil Hopkins, explains:
“There is a hierarchy within the graffiti art community, and work created by an artist such as Aroe will not be defaced by taggers. We hope that the promotion will act as a physical barrier to any further unsightly tags across Brighton, and feel that working with a high profile local artist brings the work firmly into the existing local community.”
The SSRP have also promoted Embrace Life across the creative industry through direct mailing of thermochromatic postcards – another new approach to road safety promotion – bearing a message to support the campaign’s launch. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have also been utilised to generate interest and web traffic.
Embrace Life’s Writer/Director Daniel Cox is an award winning filmmaker, with two consecutive BAFTA 60 Seconds of Fame awards to his credit. He was keen to be involved with the project and brought his own, unique, approach to the finished product.
“It was central to the development of the project that we root the concept of wearing a seat belt within the family circle, and create the advert so that it could be viewed by anyone of any age,” Daniel comments. “Children are so important as opinion formers within their family that we felt it imperative to have a child take a pivotal role in relaying our message.
“One key aspect to the storytelling is that we developed Embrace Life to be non-language specific, so that the message wouldn’t become lost when viewed by visitors to, or residents of, the UK where English might not be their first language.”
The Producer overseeing Embrace Life was Sarah Alexander, who has worked as a researcher on BBC Horizon and completed a three year traineeship with BBC News to become a Broadcast Engineer. Deciding that film was her main interest, she then moved to Pathé – first as a runner and then the Assistant to the Head of Production and only left this when she was offered the job of Assistant to the Producer on Jane Campion’s new film Bright Star. Since completing that she has worked at Ealing Studios as the Assistant to the Head of Studios and the Managing Director for three films and is presently working as the stand-in Production Executive on their new film Burke & Hare (directed by John Landis).
To view the film, log onto www.embracethis.co.uk. You can leave your feedback through the SSRP’s Facebook group – either search for ‘Sussex Safer Roads Partnership’ within Facebook, or type http://tiny.cc/SSRP into your browser.