The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming, the holidays are coming, yep, there are now just 22 sleeps until Christmas and, of course, that also means there are potentially 22 big nights out on the lash, too, Omicron permitting.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Christmas and New Year period is also one of the most dangerous times of year for drink driving collisions – and even more unsurprisingly, it is mostly men at the wheel.
And, while there is a hard core of middle-age men, the Department for Transport is continuing its strategy of getting them in young, especially since its on research shows 17- to 24-year-old male drivers are less concerned about the risks of drink-driving than they were last year.
The strategy for THINK! by the DfT and agency VMLY&R is an extension of the “Pint Block” illustration campaign first launched last year, which showed the humorous and surprising ways young people can intervene and stop drink-driving.
The new activity, “Mates for Life” once again shuns the stick for the carrot approach, highlighting how appealing to humour, positivity, and friendship when speaking to those young men most at risk of drink-driving is a powerful way to get the message across.
Launching as an online film, the spot will run across social, with media planning and buying from OmniGov and Wavemaker.
It opens with two mates sitting in a pub; when one of them picks up his next pint his pal says: “What are doing? You’re driving. And you’re my mate, plus we’ve got to head down to the chippy.”
The scene cuts to them overseeing a huge pile of chips before we are taken on an imaginary journey that features them setting up a chippy empire, which leads to one of them being kidnapped by “the fish and chip mafia”. But he manages to escape and is brought up by wolves in the forest (honestly, it’s not as rubbish as it sounds).
The friends are then seen in later life, and the voiceover states: “A mate doesn’t let a mate drink-drive” before it reverts back to the present day where they are having a joke back in the chip shop.
A THINK! spokesperson said: “Drink-driving remains a serious issue in the UK – and young men are one of the most at-risk groups, especially over the festive season. We know that young men have strong friendship bonds and want to look out for each other. We hope that this thought-provoking campaign will tap into that drive to protect each other when it really matters.”
VMLY&R creative director Tamryn Kerr added: “Pint blocking your mate and stopping them from driving drunk unlocks a lifetime of adventures for you to have together. We wanted to celebrate one of these adventures in a way that would cut through to a notoriously hard-to-reach audience.”
So, what is the consensus around the Decision Marketing office?
Well, naturally, we have never in all our long days been over the limit when driving. We have, however, been young and know the temptation to have that extra sneaky “one for the road”. We would hazard a guess (of course we have little evidence) that young people are now just as likely to be drug driving than drink driving but hey, that’s just a minor point…
To be fair, this campaign appears to hit the spot (according to some young people who visited the Decision Marketing Nerve Centre this week), so, as they, job’s a good’un… it’s also got chips with everything.
And, even if it makes young men think twice about getting behind the wheel when they are trolleyed, it will have been worth it.
Decision Marketing Adometer: A “safe pair of hands on the wheel” 8 out of 10
