Transport Accident Commission launches ‘The Lucky Ones Get Caught’ campaign ahead of the holiday season via Clemenger BBDO Melbourne
The Transport Accident Commission (TAC) has launched The Lucky Ones Get Caught – a new campaign via Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, encouraging road users to remain vigilant behind the wheel ahead of the holiday season.
The launch film follows a father driving his young family to a holiday celebration. As their journey progresses, the driver begins speeding and narrowly avoids being caught by the police due to a number of ‘lucky’ situations.
The film then comes to a crashing halt as the driver loses control of the vehicle while speeding up and being momentarily distracted. The car then veers across the road before violently rolling down an embankment into a paddock. The film ends with the sobering line The Lucky Ones Get Caught.
TAC’s head of marketing and communications, Jo Whyte, said the confronting commercial reminded Victorians that the purpose of road police enforcement is to keep everyone safe, and showed how bad choices can lead to devastation: “Ads that bring the reality home of what happens when you’re not focused on driving can really make a difference in the choices people make on the roads.
“We know this year has been really tough on people and Victorians have done a great job of looking out for each other, so we want people to extend that care to their fellow road users and help make every journey a safe one this holiday season.”
Says Rich Williams, executive creative director, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne: “After the year that we’ve had, it can be easy to get caught up in the celebrations and forget the importance of staying safe behind the wheel. Through this campaign, we wanted to reframe the role of being caught into what the reality of it often is – preventing serious trauma on the roads. We hope this encourages Victorians to take extra care on the roads this Christmas.”
The campaign launches on TV with 60” and 30” films, in addition to OOH, social, print and radio.
More information about the campaign is available at www.tac.vic.gov.au/theluckyones
Client: TAC
Head of Marketing & Communications: Jo Whyte
Senior Manager Engagement: Megan Jacobs
Public Education Manager: Kimberley Milburn
Campaign Manager: Gemma Rabourn
Media Coordinator: Nardia Brancatisano
Creative: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne
Production Company: Exit Films
Director: Glendyn Ivin
Producer: Alice Grant
EP: Leah Churchill-Brown
DOP/Cinematographer: Ari Wegner
Casting: Nick Hamon Casting
Editor: Graeme Pereira
Post-production: ARC Edit
VFX Artist: Eugene Richards
Colourist: Trish Cahill
Sound House: Squeak E Clean
Sound Engineer: Paul Le Couter
Composer: Stephen Rae
Media: Mediacom
18 Comments
Very powerful.
The crash was more to do with not paying attention to road versus actual speeding.
I get from these though that if you’re going that fast, there’s no room to make mistakes and be distracted even for a few seconds.
I actually gasped and covered my eyes, but then the cry got me anyway.
I used to speed, like most people still do. But a few years ago I found myself with no demerit points left and no option but to really focus on obeying the speed limits.
Its been two years since I have converted to never, ever speeding, 100% of the time. I’ve had no fines or loss of demerit points in two years.
As someone who now never speeds, this ad, while powerful, falls very short of actual reality. Get on any freeway in Melbourne, and you will count 9 out of 10 cars speeding. And at any one time, there’s 100 cars around you, and 90 are speeding. Zero fucks for the safety of those around them, zero fucks for the safety of road workers in zones that have been reduced from 100 to 40kms an hour. Cars flying through at 120 in 40 zones due to roadworks, with workers metres away.
So literally almost everyone speeds. All of the time. How about a campaign that calls out speeding drivers for what they really are: selfish, self centred dickheads? Why sugar coat it? That’s what you are if you speed. Youre basically saying to the world getting to your destination 2 minutes faster is more important to you than the safety of other people around you. Where’s that campaign?
I’ve been honked, road raged, cut off, tailgated by trucks who’ve blinded me with their high beams and had threats yelled at me, simply for actually doing the speed limit. This ad portrays speeding like a dodgy little secret that you get away with on lonely roads. But that’s not the truth. The truth is its almost every driver on almost every road, almost all of the time.
Where’s the real behaviour change campaign to target the 9 out of 10 drivers who will barely batter an eyelid at this?
Where’s the pretentious abstract art sculpture that punters find novel but requires layers of unpacking before people even realise it’s a road safety awareness message? This work seems like it might actually have an impact. Was Patricia busy?
Because telling speeding drivers they are “selfish, self centred dickheads” won’t change their behaviour. Calling a misbehaving kid a “naughty boy” won’t make him stop misbehaving.Telling an addict they are a “stupid fuck up ruining their life” won’t stop them shooting up.
Human behaviour and persuasion don’t work that way, which the marketers, planners and creatives who made this film know.
One way to curb risky behaviour is to illuminate consequences. Oddly, explaining the risks to an individual isn’t as persuasive as the risks to the people that person cares about.
That is why the final shot is critical. The father is stuck, upside down and bleeding, likely a broken neck. A child, unseen is screaming in terror and pain. Only a parent truly knows this horrible feeling; your child is in danger, you can’t help them, and you did it to them.
This ad will work. Not for everyone, not the ’90 other speeding drivers’ but for families making a trip at the holidays to gather for Christmas, it will work. Further – this idea turns every police car you see on the road over the break into a reminder of this story, this cautionary tale.
I can see every police officer who tickets someone saying to them “think yourself lucky it’s just a fine, mate – your kids are in the car, your speeding could have turned out much worse”.
This is great work.
Agree with those commenting back. But I think back to ‘If you drink then drive, you’re a bloody idiot’. Yes, real world consequences in those ads, but also, a bit of good old fashioned shaming and calling out the bad behaviour itself, albeit with a stunning double entendre. The kid crying at the end of this spot got me too, agree. Very powerful for parents. But not everyone is a parent.
I think there’s a missed opportunity from TAC to talk about the sheer, increasing madness on the roads. The increasing road rage. The increasing vindictiveness and selfishness. What happened to courtesy? Like when you want to overtake, but you can’t because some asshole is coming up behind you at 140 kms an hour. When you can’t make an exit because someone is speeding up the left lane. When people flash their lights at you because you’re obeying the 40km roadworks signs and they still want to do 80, even though there’s 8 council works 5 metres away. Dig deeper… A campaign about having some patience and courtesy and and not being a complete wanker. And I promise you, spend a week never ever ever speeding and you’ll see the behaviour I’m talking about. You don’t notice it when you speed, but you do when you don’t. It’s crazy.
Well done.
Good work for an important cause.
Great work and great to read some interesting and considered comments here. The ‘selfishness of speeding’ is spot on though. Speeding only ever puts others including those travelling in your car at risk. It’s just never, ever, worth it.
And yeah… that ‘cavoodle poodle’ kid crying at the end. Devastating! And hard not to forget.
Sometimes speeding a little bit to put yourself in a clearer, safer position on the road is the smartest thing to do. Good drivers do it instinctively. Hooning is dumb, but speeding a little bit and then returning to the speed limit, often smart. In this ad, he got distracted and took his eyes off the road, it wasn’t his speeding that caused the accident. Anyhow, it’s a nice ad.
Take out. I’m ok speeding as long as I keep my eyes on the road.
Make it easier to keep your eyes on the road. 90s car, paper map, no fixed speed cameras.
What century was this filmed in?
That packs a punch. Nice work on an important topic. I hope it impacts others like it just impacted me.
So impactful. And I agree, it’s good to see some good discussion here. I too would love to see some speed shaking, but likely right now at Xmas we have to concentrate on families rushing about trying to please everyone and be everywhere. Right now, it’s likely that is the most important thing to concentrate on. But let’s get to the speed shaming sometime soon. Really good work from the TAC, flawlessly crafted.
Even a little bit of “innocent” speeding can be fatal. As if you mix it with a small distraction, or an uneven surface, you don’t have the control needed to get back on track. And even if you don’t die, your life is shot to pieces anyway. Was that what I was supposed to think?
absolute rubbish add its an excuse for revenue raising the crash was caused for not concentrating which was bs anyway the lucky ones are the ones that don’t get fined
As a father who usually has two kids in the car, this really hit me hard. Not about speeding necessarily, but more about distractions while driving. Glad I watched it.