'Think when you are crossing the road, don't mess about with your mates on the streets - look both ways and don't talk to your mates when crossing, check for the cars' Boy 13

The marketing challenge
Teenagers think they know how to cross a road. Yet traffic remains the biggest single cause of accidental death for 12-16 year olds in the UK. In 2003, 1,398 teens aged 11-16 were killed or seriously injured on roads in the UK.

A rigorous research process revealed that teenagers think they can cross the road; they know the green cross code and don’t need to be ‘told’ what to do. The campaign needed to get them to reconsider their road safety behaviour and think twice about the dangers. Road safety is very far down their list of priorities - exams, friendships, relationships, parents, sex, drugs and so on are all much greater and more immediate concerns.

Needed to find a way to get into their lives and their friendship groups and make a connection.

Target audience
11- 16 year olds

The TV solution
Identified that teenagers have a misplaced confidence in their ability and often go through the motions of crossing carefully but do not pay real attention. In effect they are looking but not really seeing the danger - they are on autopilot. The commercial dramatises teenage autopilot behaviour with a tragic result.

Teenagers are a very discerning and savvy audience, for this ad to be taken seriously it needed a credible and engaging device to stand out from the crowd of brands and voices shouting at teens. The creative team decided to shoot the entire commercial on a mobile phone, an advertising first. This gives the ad the all important 1st person viewpoint taking the audience into the group of friends. A group of real teenagers from London was selected. They were given mobile phones and asked to go out on their own and record their genuine road-side behaviour which became the first 20 seconds of the commercial. The agency later worked with the teens to craft a chilling conclusion. The result was an absolutely credible and authentic teenage film which demonstrated how not giving the road your full attention can have tragic consequences.

TV’s role in the media mix
Launched virally via a bespoke website set up to be forwarded amongst teenagers to generate word of mouth (www.notlooking.co.uk). The copy for the first week was unbranded to increase the likelihood for it to be forwarded on. A week after the viral launch TV kicked off on the first episode of the new series of X-factor. The commercial has also run in cinema, focusing on key teen releases such as Doom and Final Destination 3. We have also developed two dramatic 6$ print executions which builds on the autopilot strategy.

TV usage
30-second

Channels used
C4, E4,ITV2, ITV4, S4C, Sky, MTV, Channel U/Fizz and Motors TV

The result
It’s too early to see any impact on the actual KSI figures (killed and seriously injured) for 2005 but there was substantial coverage of the new commercial on the major news channels and papers as a news item in itself. A wave of tracking research has yielded vary positive results:

(Conducted by Childwise post first wave of advertising September 2005)

Spontaneous recall (i.e. unprompted) - 52%
Prompted recall was equally as impressive with one in six of our teenage respondents (62%) recognising the commercial.

Even more impressive, when probed messaging amongst those who had seen it - 95% found the commercial easy to understand.

9 in 10 said it made them think again about being careful on the roads (92%) or made them realise it could happen to them (90%).

Accidents on the road were also shown to have risen up their hierarchy of concerns (drugs number one, other dangers include smoking, alcohol, bullying etc) - after the advertising awareness of accidents on the road as a main danger to teens had risen to around a third of respondents (32%), pre wave was around a quarter.

Also, some positive quotes from research from the teens themselves when asked what was the advertising trying to tell you (these help demonstrate that the key message about switching off their autopilot was well received):

'Think when you are crossing the road, don't mess about with your mates on the streets - look both ways and don't talk to your mates when crossing, check for the cars' Boy 13.

'Just concentrate and don't mess around. Try to be more aware'. Boy, 16.

'You must pay attention when crossing the road, it's too easy to be distracted when with other people'. Girl 16.

Have also seen activity in teen chat rooms (for example the most recent C4 burst saw discussion in the Celebrity Big Brother chat room). Many teens have debated whether the commercial is real or not demonstrating that we have managed to get into the teen friendship groups and promote thought and discussion about road safety issues.

Client: Department for Transport
Product: Teen Road Safety
Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett
Production Company: Gorgeous Enterprises
Director: Chris Palmer
Writers & Art Directors: Angus Macadam & Paul Jordan
Producer: Rupert Smythe