S&S gets SIRIous about stopping text driving

Saatchi & Saatchi Sweden has gone where no other radio ad has gone before – but perhaps should have. The ad, A SIRIous Safety Message, interacts with the Hey Siri function on mobile phones plugged into a car kit and turns the mobile phone to airplane mode.

It’s the first ever radio ad that interacts with another device, without any human interaction.

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The safe driving campaign on behalf of Toyota aims to tackle the problem of mobile phone use in cars. While earlier campaigns throughout the world have discouraged drivers to text and drive, this campaign disallows it.

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Jason Mendes Nordic, S&S Sweden executive creative director, explained, “If you ask people to turn off their phones in a cinema, they will, but ask them to turn it off in a car and surprisingly they don’t. Go figure. So it’s understandable why Toyota went to this extreme to make the point.”

Toyota’s point is very clear – either switch off your phone when driving or drive a car that is equipped with technology to diffuse phone distractions – which Toyota offers on all their new cars with their Touch and Go system.

Jan Casserlov, communication manager Toyota Sweden, commented, “We take safety very seriously at Toyota so this was an exciting way to use new technology and thus bring out an important safety message to make an important point.“

Two separate ads ran at rush hour in Sweden – one for Apple Siri and the other for Google Android – the week before the holidays when very many Swedes migrate to their summer houses and the roads are full of cars.