New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA): DRUG DRIVING

Credits & Description:

Category: Charities, Public Health & Safety, Public Awareness Messages

Advertiser: NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORT AGENCY

Product/Service: ANTI-DRUG DRIVING ENFORCEMENT

Date of First Appearance: Oct 11 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: OMD, Wellington, NEW ZEALAND

Entry URL: http://tvnz.co.nz/reservoir-hill/s1-e1-video-3043742

Managing Director: Nigel Keats (OMD)

Group Account Director: Linda Major (Clemenger BBDO)

Head of Digital: Craig Osborne (OMD)

Head of TV Trading: Hilary Yiasoumi (OMD)

Advertising Manager: Rachel Prince (NZ Transport Agency)

Principal Scientist: Paul Graham (NZ Transport Agency)

Media placement: TV - Season Of 6 'stoner' Movies - C4 - 4 November 2009

Media placement: Drug Dispensing Bags - 665 Pharmacies - 20 October 2009

Media placement: Storyline In Reservoir Hill - TVNZ On Demand - 11 October 2009



Results and Effectiveness

New Zealanders are getting the message about drug driving.
The stoner movie season delivered 25% audience coverage
Over just 8 weeks of tracking, the TV achieved 16% free and 61% unprompted recall.

Only 36 drug impairment tests were carried out in the two months following the legislation.
Lower drug-drive crash rates were attributed as a contributor to 2009 being the second-lowest road death rate in 40 years.

Reservoir Hill became the most downloaded weekly programme. We learnt about drug-driving attitudes and behaviour through correspondence between the lead character and her 886 Bebo friends plus text messages to her.



Creative Execution



We created three unique connection points to reach drug drivers.

Firstly we convinced a major TV network to run a season of 'stoner' movies. 6 weekly movies strongly featuring marijuana use such as 'Dazed and Confused', 'How High' and 'Dude Where's My Car?' attracted viewers who were more likely to be drug users before we hit them with our relevant drug-drive TVCs.

We also created a storyline in a Digital Emmy nominated, online teen drama series - Reservoir Hill.
The boyfriend of the main character was seen to smoke marijuana and drive throughout the series. In the gripping finale, he needed to rescue her, but was unable to do so when he was stopped by Police for drug-driving.

For prescription-drug users, we arranged for the bags in which presciptions are dispensed, in nearly all pharmacies (665) in New Zealand, to be replaced with our own bags containing a drug-drive message.



Insights, Strategy & the Idea



In November 2009 New Zealand Police gained greater powers to prosecute drivers under the influence of drugs.
Our role was to advise users of both prescription and illegal drugs of the law changes and increased risk of getting caught.
Problem prescription drug users are people who see 'Do not drive or operate heavy machinery after taking' on the warning labels, but do so anyway.
Targeting illegal drug users is more difficult. We know marijuana is the most common illegal drug used in New Zealand by a significant margin with around 1 in 8 people smoking regularly. We knew they were generally young, but not suprisingly, users of illegal drugs are reluctant to give researchers detailed information about themselves and therefore give us a strong demographic profile to work to.
Given this, instead of trying to identify who the potential drug drivers were, we got them to self-identify.