Volkswagen launches latest safety innovation designed by children via Colenso BBDO NZ
In 2014, Volkswagen was the biggest R&D spending company in the world, investing US$13.5 billion. Much of this focus is on safety.
And while Volkswagens are undoubtedly getting safer and safer it is still driver behaviour, mainly speeding, that is the single biggest cause of road crashes and most significant factor in determining whether a crash will be fatal.
Dangerous decisions on the road occur due to momentary lapses in judgment. Our rational, responsible selves take a backseat to the irrational person racing to a meeting, or overtaking a frustratingly slow driver.
The Volkswagen Reduce Speed Dial experiment aimed to disrupt behaviour at this critical moment.
In a controlled experiment conducted by Colenso and FINCH, directed by Luke Bouchier – four families were supplied with Volkswagen Golfs. Unbeknown to the parents, Volkswagen, Colenso and FINCH created a replacement panel for the speedo. They followed all of the clarity and safety restrictions of a standard speedo, but the dial was personally hand written by one of their children. This simple, personal mnemonic aimed to remind our parents what they have to live for at the exact moment they considered speeding.
Volkswagen followed the Kiwi families and their driving habits to understand the impact of this idea and whether we could in fact, engineer safer drivers. The results, whilst indicative at this stage, have been very promising:
- One family had no recorded speed infringements after the installation of the personalised speed dial
- One family reduced their top speed by 19kmh from a max of 123km to a max of 104km
- Half of the drivers’ maximum speeds reduced after fitting their personalised speed dial
- Three out of the four drivers reduced their incidence of speeding in 100km zones by 50%.
Overall, all of the families reduced their speed in multiple driving situations.
Says Tom Ruddenklau, general manager at Volkswagen New Zealand: “With Volkswagen Group the biggest spending R&D company in the world, we focus on engineering safer cars year after year. But safety ratings don’t change driver behaviour – and there’s an opportunity for our brand to do our bit in trialling some things that may. It was a great opportunity to work with four Kiwi families to investigate a simple idea that may one day help us all.”
Says Nick Worthington, creative chairman Colenso BBDO: “As with most problems we often overlook the most simple answer. We hope that the results from this early trial help to direct more focus on the cause of the vast majority of crashes – the driver. This has been an emotional process for everyone involved and we believe that having a simple reminder from a loved one in front us at the exact moment when you are thinking about speeding is a brilliant way to make people think about everything and everyone they have to live for.”
Colenso BBDO
Creative Chairman – Nick Worthington
Creative Director – Levi Slavin
Digital Creative Director – Aaron Turk
General Manager – Scott Coldham
Business Director – Krystel Houghton
FINCH
Executive Producer – Michael Hilliard
Director – Luke Bouchier
11 Comments
I absolutely love this idea. Honestly, it would probably actually change drivers’ behaviour, which in and of itself an incredible feat. But it does what so much innovative thinking often does in our industry – it stops short of being a real thing. You can’t buy one, it won’t be remembered next week, and its execution (as it is here) won’t shift a single vehicle. It’s just a clever thought and nothing more that will do precisely zero to both VW’s bottom line and driver behaviour. It’s still a great thought. I just sincerely wished it went all the way and became an actual thing, rather than an agency thought,
This is brilliant. Will save lives and hopefully clean up at Cannes. If only VW Australia did this kind of thing.
I’ve got no association with this apart from the fact I work in advertising (it’s a shame we have to clarify that before commenting). I love it, simple thought, executed well. The fact that it’ll never be mass produced doesn’t seem to matter in this day and age, when viewing a web film like that can have a similar emotional effect that the actual project would have had. Great job.
It’s gotta start somewhere douche.
Finally, I can select my own typeface for my dashboard.
In the digital age – that it’s not mass market doesn’t matter so much – people will see the ‘film’ on their Facebook most probably. What makes it redundant for me is that hardly anyone ever looks at the analogue dial anymore – most modern cars (including the golf) have a large digital display that drivers look at. I can’t remember the last time I looked at my analogue display to check my speed, sorry.
Fair point but if you look beyond the video it looks like the purpose of the film and from what i understand the experiement is to demonstrate that it works and if so, to take it into the real world. It would be awesome if you could order a speed dial like you can other car accessories.
Lets see.
It’s dickheads like you that hold the world back.
Great idea and more importantly Colenso have done the hard yards and got the ball rolling with VW.
@Nah, yeah The fact that it doesn’t matter that it’s not mass produced was my whole point. It should matter because otherwise what’s the point of it? It’s a great thought that should live beyond a shelf life of a week (if it even lasts that long in the minds of Johnny consumer, which it won’t). Without becoming an actual thing the great thinking gets lost, rather than being leveraged.
I love the idea, I’m not at all poo pooing it, per se. It’s seriously very clever. It’s just that this sort of brilliant thinking would actually make a difference (which is actually supposed to be the whole point of what we do) if it did go that extra step. And so often these sorts of ideas don’t.
I thought Levi left the agency…
Couldn’t agree more. It’s a great idea if it was real and really went into production. As is it’s an award idea like Fundawear.To those people saying that as long as people see the web film, really? I hope you’re right, but know you’re not.
Now I’m off to get my kid to write a post it note to put on my dashboard telling me not to speed, yell at people out the window or perve at girls too long.