In 2023, Irish roads had witnessed 177 fatal collisions, resulting in 188 tragic fatalities. This marks an unsettling increase of 28 fatal collisions and 33 more lives lost compared to the previous year. Shockingly, fatalities are now at their highest since 2014, and the start of 2024 has continued with this worrying trend.
Creating the ‘’SAY IT’’ campaign for the Road Safety Authority, we knew we needed to look at it differently. In a year where road fatalities were at their highest, we needed to come up with a high impact campaign that aimed to reach the people we love the most: friends and family.
Utilising our in house creative team STUDIO we came up with a concept that worked across all of our radio stations, along with our social, digital and print platforms.
The brief was simple; we needed to create a concise message that could be used across the board, but that would work as an emergency response to the increase in fatalities happening on Irish roads.
Realising that traditional shock advertising and road signs displaying casualty numbers struggle to make the impact they once did in curbing dangerous driving habits, it was time to shift the narrative and initiate a conversation. The best catalysts for change are ‘Loved Ones’ – those often left grieving or tending to life-altering injuries.
However, as we all know from our own experiences loved ones today often hesitate to speak up, especially young men.
This campaign targets these ‘LOVED ONES,’ urging girlfriends, boyfriends, partners, sisters, teammates, classmates, sons, daughters, and anyone who can speak up in a car and take action. This campaign urges people to ‘’SAY IT.’’
The forefront of this campaign were the 10 second radio ads placed at key timings across the day. Hearing a daughter concerned about her mother texting while driving, or a boyfriend worried about his girlfriend who is driving too fast, puts the feeling back into these ads.
STUDIO’s wanted to put the people at the forefront of the message.
These short bursts translated perfectly into social snippets which were also created in house.
Finally, to ensure that we caught our audience on all platforms, we created a high impact print campaign. Using road signs that we are familiar with, our innovative ads not only told a strong message individually, but also spelled the impactful message of this campaign – ‘’SAY IT.’’
One of the triumphs of this campaign is that it can easily be adapted to call out any of the Road Safety Authority messaging. As all assets and the concept were created in house, pre- Christmas we were able to support the RSA’s ‘’Slow Down Day’’ and will continue to support messaging going forward, but always urging loved ones to speak up and ‘’SAY IT.’’
Our radio stations got fully behind this message and as you can hear in the clip above, our on air teams talked at length about the importance of the message.
Creative Director of STUDIO Karen Price said of the campaign:
‘’Our current reality feels like a perpetual crisis, where traditional shock advertising and road signs displaying casualty numbers struggle to make the impact they once did in curbing dangerous driving habits. It’s time to shift the narrative and initiate a conversation. The best catalysts for change are the ‘Loved Ones’ – those often left grieving or tending to life-altering injuries.
Yet, loved ones today often hesitate to speak up, especially among young men. This campaign targets these ‘LOVED ONES,’ urging girlfriends, boyfriends, partners, sisters, teammates, classmates, sons, daughters, and anyone who can speak up in a car to take action. This campaign urges people to ‘’SAY IT.’’
This article is from March’s edition of Urban Media Amplify. For more information or to sign up, visit: https://www.urbanmedia.ie/amplify/
