To overcome acceptance of the increasing number of driveway run-overs as unavoidable accidents and focus on eliminating the issue of surprise, the simple call to action was ‘Order your free photo keyring from www.safekids.nz and create a personal driveway safety reminder’. With a photo of their child on their keyring, the message is more powerful. Knowing fear would turn people off the message, the tone is positive and highlights the prevention behaviours being encouraged, crafting the idea around the moment when outcomes can change.
The major objective was to drive awareness and understanding of how to prevent these tragic events with young parents in high risk communities, thereby reducing deaths and injuries from driveway run-overs and subsequent costs to New Zealand’s healthcare system. A single driveway run-over costs NZ’s health budget $ hundreds of thousands in care, medical professional fees and $ millions in lifetime care and rehabilitation. If this campaign prevented 1 severe injury incident, lifetime ROI against campaign costs would be paid back over 40 times.
The idea used many channels:
- 30 second TVC and radio
- PR campaign: Seven Sharp and NZ Herald
- Mail-outs to Early Childhood Council’s 2,000-member database
- Social media campaign: Facebook, Neighbourly.co.nz, etc.
- Activation at 26 events with free keyring photo booths
- A nationwide volunteer community distribution network
Measurable results:
- 9,413 single keyring requests — 67% to younger parents (21-40y.o). 85% said they now know how to prevent run-overs by walking around the car
- requests from 1,150 separate community organisations for +50 pcs keyrings to promote driveway safety. 66% of requests were from ECS (44%), home visitors and Well Child services
- Neighbour’s Day activation generated 1,909 responses
- By June 2016, 300,413 keyrings have been sent out and distributed into communities across NZ
The post-campaign period has seen the lowest rate of driveway deaths in a decade and admissions to Starship Children’s Hospital halved.