Cannes Contenders: MediaCom NZ
How will New Zealand perform at Cannes this year? In the lead up to the Festival, Campaign Brief will be showcasing the work we hope will impress the judges…
MediaCom, New Zealand
New Zealand faced one of the highest rates for driveway deaths and injuries of children in the OECD and the problem growing. Our challenge was stark but inspiring – could we stop kids playing on the driveway from being hit by reversing cars? Our insight was that we needed to install in drivers a safety routine the moment before they put their key in the ignition, after that it was too late. But it needed to evoke an emotional response to be truly effective at changing behavior. Our solution was to use drivers’ keys as our own, owned media channel- with a Safe Kids ‘Check for me before you turn the key,” personalised photo keychain. This featured a photo of their own child. That meant instead of preaching from afar we literally put prevention in the hands of parents that needed it the most. And it wouldn’t just work during the campaign, our key rings would remind drivers every time they touched their keys – potentially hundreds of times a week and creating long-term habitual behaviour change. This powerful idea galvanized community groups, government, media owners and parents of children-at-risk alike resulting in $600,000 worth of earned media and the negotiation of more than $2m in media on a budget of $310,000. This is Safekids Aotearoa’s most successful campaign ever. NZ has since seen the lowest incidence of driveway-related child deaths in a decade and halved injury rates. To date, this campaign has received 7 Gold, 3 Silver and 3 Bronze awards across FOMG, NZ Beacons, NZ Effies, NZ Axis, NZ Direct Marketing awards and was a Finalist in the NZ Marketing Awards.