SA Police launches controversial new Road Safety campaign via Black Sheep Advertising
South Australian Police has launched a controversial road safety campaign via Black Sheep Advertising.
You can call people a bastard and it will roll off them like water off a duck’s back. But call them selfish and suddenly you’re under their skin. Selfishness, it seems, is not a human trait we want to be tarnished with.
This is the thinking that underpins the campaign for the South Australian Police.
Says Richard Blackwell, manager media road safety at SAPOL: “It’s challenging to keep coming up with new and impactful road safety campaigns.
“So this campaign approaches the issue from a different perspective and delivers it with a punch.”
Says Andrew Millar, creative director and principal at Black Sheep Advertising: “The insights showed that people’s number one reason for drink driving is convenience – that it’s just easier for them.
“So we wanted to get into the heads of drink drivers and contrast their excuses with the potential consequences for themselves and those around them.
“At its core, we realised drink driving is one of the most selfish thing you can do.”
Inspired somewhat by the classic Bloody Idiot campaign, this campaign delivers the message from the perspective of the drink driver featured.
Says Millar: “It was important that this message wasn’t delivered to the target audience from the mouth of the Police. People would ignore it.
“We didn’t want people wearing their drink driving efforts on their shirts as a badge of pride.”
The primary target for this campaign, as with many drink driving campaigns are young males, often regular pub-goers, who repeatedly drink and then drive.
It was this audience, as well as the recent horrific road toll, particularly amongst young men that helped get the choice to use the controversial word ‘Prick’ across the line.
The campaign was shown to South Australian drink drivers to determine if it had been taken too far and if the public would be offended.
Says Blackwell: “The overwhelming response was that if it gets drink drivers off the road and gets them to change the behaviour, then it’s worth it.”
“We expect it will cause some debate, but perhaps we should have pushed it further. The research suggested stronger language could have been used!” laughs Millar.
The ‘Drink Drive. Selfish Prick.’ campaign launches Friday 26th March across free to air, catchup TV, cinema, radio, outdoor, transit, digital and within venues.
This is the first campaign Black Sheep Advertising has produced for SAPOL.
Client: SAPOL
Manager, Media Road Safety: Richard Blackwell
Creative Agency: Black Sheep Advertising
Creative Director: Andrew Millar
Account Director: Tom Ootes
Senior Account Manager: Daniel Wilde
Creative: Danilo Watanabe, Julie Martin, Franwyn Botha, Michael Gagliardi
Strategic Consultants: John McLaren, Peter Withy
Production Company: Proetic
Producer: Erica Ockenden
Director: David Ockenden
DOP: Miles Rowland
Sound: Seeing Sounds
Post Production: Visualizm
Photographer: Richard Lyons
Social Videos: Riley Scott
Casting: Heesom Casting
Media Agency: Wavemaker
8 Comments
I applaud not only the creative to push it here but also to the client…it’s not often govt will go this bold. Kudos Black Sheep, nice one.
It’s controversial even before the pr is written, incredible! Must have used the same time machine to get the same idea over and over.
I do not think using gutter language will help one bit. This “Selfish Prick” Ad is going a bit too far. It targets men only. Are you going to do a female version – “Selfish C**ts” too? I think not. You started with “Get you S**t together a little while ago. Don’t think that worked either.
I think you guys need to “get YOUR shit together” and think about the effects this language will have on children. I certainly will NOT train them to be responsible drivers. I thought there were TV standards protecting us from this type of Advertising. Perhaps you need the PC brigade to get on you.
Get a life bud
The sentiment is all well and good, and statistically I’m certain men are the main offenders. I just can’t help but wonder if this were a female issue if they’d have the guts to say selfish B@!#$. I’d imagine in that case everyone would be up in arms with equality etc, but hey, we’re men, we should be expected to just suck it up because were all violent stupid animals, right?
Have only just come across this ad on catch up TV (live in Victoria, I don’t think it ran on free to air here) but wanted to comment (albeit a bit late).
It’s about time this bad behaviour was called out for what it is, and people were called out for what they are. Selfish pricks. Selfish pricks also speed, tailgate, talk on phones while driving, cut people off, fail to indicate, drive dangerously close to cyclists… the list goes on.
More of this please.
And Graeme Roberts – pour a cup of concrete would ya? Jesus.
I think the ad is really good in that it drives home that it’s a selfish act, however, when my 6 year old son is watching his favourite kid youtubers and I hear “selfish prick” come out of his mouth after an ad he just watched at 4pm, I’m a little annoyed at having to explain to him not to use that word.
Whilst I applaud any campaign that reduces the carnage on our roads I think only targetting male drivers is wrong. Women drink and drive also albeit to a lesser extent so they should also be the target of drink driving campaigns or is it a case of double standards again?