Insight
Despite being aware that drug driving is a problem on New Zealand roads, cannabis users don’t think they are taking a risk when getting behind the wheel. They argue that cannabis is harmless and they are a better driver when stoned – cautious and chilled. They incorrectly think they can handle the drug and their car.
OMD’s challenge was to unsettle them and get them to contemplate the dangers of driving stoned.
The NZ anti-Drug Driving programme is in its very early days. Enforcement methods are still not fully researched or agreed upon. At this early stage, the audience needs to actually recognise there is an issue. From there it can then hope to start changing behaviour.
Strategy
The 'Stoner' audience are experts at tuning out from messages they don't want to hear, especially from Government. They simply ignore any accusatory finger being pointed at them.
In unsettling their mis-informed driving confidence, OMD needed to be credible and have a conversation in their channels. It needed to change the messenger from being a prohibitionist Government PSA, to a story told by their peers.
The media therefore needed to enable NZTA to be part of the conversation rather than being invasive and disrespectfully talking ‘at’ them. Research revealed a core ‘stoner’ audience and the digital environments in which they existed. Snapchat was there every time.
Execution
So the agency created TinnyVision.
A group of guys inviting people to see their stoner sessions on Snapchat. Why would they post their antics? Because they can get away with it. You watch it once and it's gone. No incriminating evidence.
It seeded rumour of TinnyVision's funny stoner snaps on sites, identified by social listening, where kiwi stoners hang out and swap stories. Importantly nobody suspected a thing - not a whiff that this message was from the NZTA.
When a new audience member added TinnyVision on Snapchat, over the course of that day they were entertained by video snaps of the guys getting stoned and their reactions getting slower.
11 snaps later, the guys decide to go for a drive. A girl walks out. The driver is too slow to react. He hits her. She hits the windscreen. You can't watch it again - it's gone.
For a minute you freak out. Then your phone beeps and one final snap gives the game away with the sombre still of "Stoned drivers are Slower to React”.
Check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV0OzHjMimc.
No advert, no booked spots, just intriguing storytelling by stoners for stoners, leveraging the instant power of their favoured channel – Snapchat.
Results
A massive 15% of the drug driving audience not only added ‘TinnyVision’ but viewed all the snaps to their dramatic end.
Driving this take up was our seeded media with thousands of likes, shares and comments. Importantly, of these comments, none were negative or revealed the ending.
One Instagram post sums up the huge response: "I laughed, then I gasped, then I got the message, AWESOM."
Reducing Drug Driving is a long-term behaviour change programme. TinnyVision has helped get to the start line by at least getting thousands of the audience to recognise there is an issue.