Wanting safety for a child is the most deeply human feeling. That child may be eight months old or eighteen. This incredibly powerful need is the foundation of McCann New Zealand’s new campaign, Born Ready, for AA Insurance, targeting young drivers and their worried parents. The partners have put a child in the driver’s seat and let them loose in an imaginary world.

The commercial features a (very) young protagonist confidently driving in a dream-like car, passing through the imaginary world aptly named Hazard City, filled with confusing roundabouts, sheer cliff faces and intimidating motorways. When he arrives home safely, the viewers’ point-of-view switches to the eyes of his mother. It is revealed to the viewer that Hazard City was the mother’s imagination, and the driver is her teenager not the imagined pre-schooler.

AA Insurance’s head of brand, content and sponsorship, Minna Reinikkala, commented, “Watching your child drive away – no matter their age – can be worrying. Do they know the best way, will they check their side mirrors when changing lanes, will they freak out at that narrow lane on the harbour bridge, will everyone else drive safe around my baby? We want to encourage parents to embrace this milestone and show them their young driver has this – and we’ve got them all covered, with AA Insurance’s car insurance.”

McCann New Zealand’s executive creative director, Rory McKechnie, noted that rather than creating a perfect digital world, they worked with New Zealand director, Joel Kefali, who built Hazard City by hand, piece by piece. “We wanted to make the imagined dangers of driving on New Zealand roads feel as real as they do in a parent’s mind. The team balanced real fear with imagined situations, handmaking all elements seen throughout the ad before shooting them on camera. This resulted in a tactile world that felt real even if the scenes had a touch of the fantastical to them.

“From heavily trafficked roundabouts pulled by unseen hands to painstakingly assembled stop motion clouds, even down to the noises heard throughout, everything was made by a team of talented humans. It gives the campaign a tactile, human quality that feels particularly relevant at a time when we’re surrounded by increasingly synthetic and AI-generated content.”

Born Ready is running in New Zealand across television, magazine, outdoor, digital and social media.

Credits:
Client: AA Insurance
Chief Marketing & Product Officer: Shaun Rees
Head of Brand, Content & Sponsorship: Minna Reinikkala
Brand Lead: Cayden Crombie

Creative Agency: McCann NZ
Production Company: Good Oil
Director: Joel Kefali
Managing Director: George Mackenzie
Executive Producer: Andrew McLean
Producer: Mark Foster
Production Designer: Neville Stevensen
DOP: Adam Luxton
Editor: Luke Haigh
Colourist: Matic Prusnik
Online: Stuart Bedford

Music: Born Free, licensed via Franklin Road
Sound Design: Miller Yule, McCann
BTS Director: Adam Page
Still Photographer (Loupe): Frances Carter
Media Agency: OMD NZ