“Almost home.” Texting that is nothing, right? Unfortunately a lot of drivers think that. In fact, it’s 289 metres of driving blind.
Showing people how much blind driving they do when they text is how Happiness Brussels, an FCB Alliance, aims to help OVK/PEVR (Parents of Road Victims) prevent texting and driving. Someone had to do something radically different. Texting and driving is still prevalent throughout the world and a major cause of road deaths.
The campaign lives firstly on Blindmeters.com, which turns Google maps into a text editor and allows you to type on any road. A specially designed font connects with speed limitations of the road you are typing on and stretches to the exact amount of metres you are driving blind.
The results are eye-opening: One character at 90km/h makes you miss 19.75 metres and 26.33 meters at 120km/h.
“On my way” is 7 characters, or 236 metres of driving blind. Longer messages get up to 1 kilometre of driving blind.
Juxtaposed with this is the fact that 1 fraction of a second of inattentiveness can have serious consequences.
Geoffrey Hantson, chief creative officer of Happiness Brussels, an FCB Alliance, commented, “In order to change that behaviour we wanted to literally let people experience how many metres they are actually driving blind. Because even though most people know, nobody really realises how many metres they are really missing.”
The platform connects different databases and layers them onto one website. Thomas Coliers, head of technology, explained, “The website combines data from different map sources which allows us to render text along roads on top of satellite imagery. One source is used as the primary visual layer for the map, another source allows us to use the geometry data of the roads, together with speed limits and other important data to be able to “write” on these roads. The font in the website is custom made for the purpose of being able to dynamically stretch.”
The platform is supported by a fully integrated media campaign, with a television and cinema commercial, and social films of people walking the distance of their last text message. The campaign launched in Belgium and will spread across different European countries.
Credits:
Agency: Happiness, an FCB Alliance
Executive Creative Management: Karen Corrigan
Creative Director: Geoffrey Hantson
Creative Coach: Katrien Bottez
Creatives: Roxane Schneider & Pieter Claeys
Group Account Director : Hans Smets
Account Manager : Tine Van Hasselt
Design: Dries Lauwers
Typographer: Edouard Schneider @ Edsnor
Agency Producers: Bart Vande Maele & Sophie Gunsbourg
Digital Production: Bliss Entertainment
Digital Producer: Kris Van Wallendael
Head of Technology: Thomas Colliers
Sound Production Company : Raygun
Composer: Peter Baert
Film Production : Latcho Drom
Director: Christopher Ross-Kellam
Producers: Jeroen Berx, Efrosini Spanoudis
DOP: Edgar Dubrovskiy
Grade: Moxy
Head of Motion : Remke Faber
Editors Social Film: Simon Schuurman & Matthias Vandenbosch
Client : OVK/PEVR (Parents of Road Victims)
Contact Team : Koen van Wonterghem & Ellen Ruys
