Clemenger BBDO Melbourne launches groundbreaking TAC project ‘Graham’: the only person designed to survive on our roads
The Transport Accident Commission, via agency Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne, has launched its latest road safety project, highlighting how susceptible the human body is to the forces involved in transport accidents.
‘Graham’, an interactive lifelike sculpture demonstrating human vulnerability, has been created by respected Melbourne artist Patricia Piccinini, who was briefed by a leading trauma surgeon and a crash investigation expert on what bodily features that might be present in humans if they had evolved to withstand the forces involved in crashes.
Says TAC chief executive officer, Joe Calafiore: “Cars have evolved a lot faster than humans and ‘Graham’ helps us understand why we need to improve every aspect of our roads system to protect ourselves from our own mistakes.”
Says Clemenger BBDO Melbourne creative director Stephen de Wolf: “Humans will never catch up to our advancements in transport, so ‘Graham’ is a way for people to think about their own vulnerability and the road toll in a totally different way – a way free of scare tactics and guilt.”
Artist Patricia Piccinini got involved in the project when she realised her work could make a real difference to the community: “‘Graham’ is not the solution, he is a catalyist for conversation about our vulnerability. He can plant that seed in our minds about how vulnerable we are on the roads,” says Piccinini.
‘Graham’ also incorporates Australia’s debut of Google Tango, the latest in immersive augmented reality technology. Visitors will be able to use Tango to look beneath Graham’s skin and better understand how his unique features would work to cushion him from serious injury in a crash.
Google Creative Agency lead, Ross Jauncey says ‘Graham’ is a stunning example of how Australian creatives are using augmented reality technology: “The TAC is the first to use Tango in Australia and it’s great to see how the technology can be used to build unique and innovative campaigns.”
‘Graham’ can be visited at the State Library of Victoria until August 8, before going on a roadshow of regional centres. People can also interact with Graham online at meetgraham.com.au
Client: Transport Accident Commission (TAC)
Creative Agency: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne
Creative Chairman: James McGrath
Executive Creative Director: Ant Keogh
Creative Directors: Stephen de Wolf and Evan Roberts
Art Director: George McQueen
Copywriter: Tom McQueen
Agency Producer – Print: Nicholas Short
Agency – Executive Producer – TV: Sonia von Bibra
Agency Producer Digital: Allan Ngo
Senior Planner: Matt Pearce
Lee Simpson: Managing Partner
Naomi Gorringe: Group Account Director
Kate Joiner: Account Director
Experiential Augmented Reality: Airbag Productions
Creative Technologist: Steven Nicholson
Managing Partner: Adrian Bosich
Producer: Nick Venn
3D Team: Patrick Gavin, Adam MacGowan, Dmitrij Leppee, Tim Murphy, Justin Imhoff
AR Team: Leigh Mannes, Rob Caparetto, Paul Stapelberg
DoP: Drew Dunlop, Tom Marley, Sam Coates @ Flare
Editor: Tom Marley, Raphaela Lee @ Finish
Digital Designer: Jess Ramsey
Music Composer/Arranger: Byron Scullin
Music Production Company: Level Two Music
Photographer: Adrian Lander
Post Production Company: Finish Productions
Print Producer: Nicholas Short
Production Company: Flare
Retoucher: Steve Pratt
Full Stack Developer: Sylvain Simao
Activation: Traffik
Senior Business Director: Tim Holman
Business Manager: Jake Ford
Producer: Ben Sewell
PR: Nichola Patterson – Propeller
Client/s
Sam Cockfield – Senior Manager, Road Safety
Cherie McMahon – Project Manager, Marketing
Samantha Buckis – Acting Manager, Road Safety
Sarah Mundine – Online Communications Manager
Jessica McGlinchey – Sponsorship & Marketing Coordinator
Bruce Honey – Project Manager, Online
56 Comments
This is incredible. Such a new way way of looking at the problem. Deserves serious metal.
This is awesome work guys and girls. Congrats to all involved.
Intelligent.
Creative.
Educational.
Relevant.
Thought provoking.
Great work, well done all.
(And, best with Chrome.)
That’s just brilliant. Lateral, relevant thinking. Gold.
Huge idea. Well done to all involved.
Mind blown. Brilliantly done. Absolutely world class.
Best thing I’ve seen all year. Can see this being a really effective education tool for young drivers. Great call getting Patricia onboard.
Super proud of AIRBAG’s work on this. Always great to have a passion project going through! Big thanks to Clems Melb for the amazing brief.
Seriously great! Well done to all involved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds460ROBHnA
Brilliant. What a coup to get Patricia Piccinni involved. Amazing
For your exquisite entertainment, such a human actually existed.
http://poetry.rotten.com/banjo-goiter/index3.html
Amazing campaign, so inventive, creative and thought provoking as everyone has said! Also they have finished up with some amazing art by Patricia 🙂
More importantly, how did his penis and balls fare?
Jealous. Humbled. Inspired.
Jesus christ this is amazing. I am in awe of the team behind this.
Sorry, Oh yes is right. First thing I thought of, ‘The Natural Born Smoker’
https://youtu.be/Ds460ROBHnA
What ‘Dumb Ways’ should have been.
Better than anything i saw at Cannes this year! Well done.
… and this is everything wrong with creativity. It’s up its own bum and will loads of awards (as you all point out), but for the wrong reasons. It will be ignored by consumers, it wont do dick.
Absolutely fresh way of looking at the problem, in the early 1980’s
Originally written by the brilliant Rob Janowski and Art Directed brilliantly by Ray Barrett, shot by the magnificent Barry Myers.
Brilliant thinking.
Furby would survive an accident at 60kmph.
This thing is going to haunt my nightmares.
Also, great work.
Natural Born Smoker, FCO LONDON, CIRCA 1985
the best thing about this campaign is how they seeded the image of Graham with the caption ‘russian army surgically alters man to survive impact’ with random URLs that re-directed to the messaging – that’s how millions of young men shared and were exposed to the message.
except they didn’t, because the goal of this shit is awards not efficacy.
great idea – deserved a campaign not just a case study.
This is amazing. Well done.
The main visual will get attention but that’s where it stops. Is Graham a driver, a pedestrian, a passenger? Or all three? Or more? Who is this for? My least favourite part is how Graham is given bigger feet so that he could simply leap out of the way of cars, presumably because he also has telepathic skills to know when a car is about to hit him, even when he’s Pokemoning. There’s also a reason no one makes these kind of super rich content sites anymore. It’s because they take too long to load and then don’t deliver. I had time to watch 8 cat clips during the time it was telling me turn on the minimalistic ambient sound that serves no meaningful purpose other than polishing the turd even harder. The judges will love it.
On behalf of all Graham’s out there – why the hell wouldn’t they create a fictional name to go with this fictional character? I’ve received relentless ridicule and harassment since this campaign launched.
How could an agency think this would not have a negative effect on people who share the name with this thing!!!
Very insensitive
What an amazing execution.
But is it just a little bit convoluted? A bit too theoretical?
I mean, will it make any change in motorists behaviour?
Will it save a life?
Is it a good idea, or a somewhat pointless idea with a lot of craft and cash applied to it.
And as some suggest, is its real motive here to win awards?
Is it effort for ego, rather than for a the needs of cause?
Because iform certain angles it can look like a bit of a silly exercise.
It’s a very cool idea, but the execution seems awfully passive to me.
How are people going to discover Graham? Surely a real Graham, or at least one that interacts with the real world, would be more confronting than a conceptual art piece.
The video is more a Making Of than something aimed at consumers.
I did see a PR story on SMH today, but it linked to the dull video rather than the website.
I hope this isn’t yet another scam taking advantage of misery as some above have suggested (and I have trouble believing that Clems or TAC would put their names on such a thing anyway), but surely it needs to be ‘bigger’.
We should all definitely do this, then! Excellent!!!! And I’ll be doing that thing from right now to SAVE LIVES! And that thing is what you should be doing too. The strange guy thing on a chair. Act now at the website thingy.
Fucking awesome. Seriously. So bloody good.
Interesting work – no doubt, but it lacks the knockout punch.
I assume it’s trying to make the point ‘nobody’s built like Graham so drive safely’, but it never does. There needs to be something direct and clear to place in a nutshell.
I also thought the video started off well but started to drag on a bit.
Some slick web production to enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds460ROBHnA
@awesome
What are you on about? Russians? Are you a conspiracy theorist?
Got out of the shower this morning and my wife said, “you look like Graham”.
Thanks!
Well, Natural Born Smoker was a name which basically summed up the idea when you saw the creation. I’ve seen Graham endlessly for the last two days and I still don’t know what the fuck he does – really.
I know it’s something to do with TAC, but I seriously don’t know what it’s about.
Natural Born Smoker made one ask the question ‘What is that about?”
‘Graham’ is just flip.
Shame, cos they’ve gone to all that trouble of copying the rest of the idea, they should have tried to make it work better.
If you’re lucky enough to work on the TAC account you should be putting all your efforts into saving lives.
Not winning awards
You got some nice news snippets for your case study last night which is obviously all this campaign was designed to do.
There’s a reason the road toll has climbed since this account moved to Clems.
@Old CD Guy:
Get your own nom de plume.
SO proud Bubs
@Old CD Guy:
I am Old CD Guy. And I want to know about this man’s potentially deformed genitalia.
Brilliant!
I know a guy from Victoria who actually looks like Graham
Life is tough for him at the moment
1 like = 1 prayer
This is what makes me sick about this industry – The end goal is to win awards, not to do effective work for a client.
This is very clever. Not original, but clever.
It will make a supurb case study film. And win awards.
But it’s shit advertising.
That Furby comment is hilarious.
I love the layout. Looks like the old Telstra 4G ads of yesteryear.
Absolutely loved Graham! This is an awesome example of creativity meeting constructive knowledge sharing. Stunning work..thanks a lot for sharing the project and i will definitely be taking a trip to the state library to meet graham.
The more petty people who hate on it, the better it tends to be. The really shit work no one actually bothers trying to talk it down.
As someone watching this campaign from Auckland (and lets face it, NZ is kicking AU’s ass when it comes to creativity in recent years), this is the first thing in a long time from AU that I wish I had worked on. Good work to all involved.
No, @Old CD Guy, you are Spartacus.
I just love all these comments.
This is a brilliant ad for Clems.
It will win a shipping container of gold.
And it will achieve what they need: to regain their rep as the best creative agency in Australia.
Job done, and done very well.
End of story.
The only reason there are so many comments is because it’s so stupidly over spent rubbish of nothingness. It offers nothing for anyone to do. WTF am I supposed to do?
An amazing idea, amazingly executed, by an amazing group of people.
Have been very proudly showing this to anyone who will listen to my gravely voice.
Excellent work all xxx
I made my now 25yr old daughter watch all the old TAC ads before she learnt to drive. I wanted to scare her into safe driving and understand who she shares the road with. A couple of years ago we saw this big long empty lunch table set for Christmas and everyone who died in car accidents it reminded us both of all that. This is different. It’s the same message but done in another way. Well done to TAC for taking the time to tell such important messages and getting back to standing out with your messages.
Attention all muppets.
This is a work of art, that is provoking discussion and understanding of the dangers of driving amongst Victorians. And given the coverage in Vic, and now around the world, those that criticise clearly don’t understand the shape and power of a modern idea.
This is simply genius, pure and simple.
This campaign is amazing, hence the need for sub par creatives to try and knock it down. I mean, how else would they compete? Well done to the team involved, inspiring, creative and meaningful work