Before creative work commenced on its campaign for road safety charity, Brake, for National Road Safety Week, Y&R New Zealand was confronted with this information: “On average each week in New Zealand, five families are told the devastating news that someone they love, is someone they will never see again. Their families don’t just lose a loved one. They lose everything that person could have become.”
The agency knew then that it wanted New Zealanders to think about the potential life-long cost of their decisions on the road. And the campaign, Living Memories, began to form.
Five families from around the country, each of whom had lost a child in a car accident years before, volunteered to be part of the project. Each family worked with a forensic age progression specialist and the digital artists at Weta Digital, to help create an individual portrait of what their child would look like today.
Forensic specialist, Kevin Darch, began with a collection of childhood and family photographs, to create an artistic impression of how each child lost would look in 2015. This image was then supplied to Weta Digital who digitally sculpted a 3D portrait model of each person, including fine details like eyelashes, eyebrows, skin tone and texture. Each portrait was touched by at least eight different artists in various departments at Weta Digital to create the final images.
Brake, Y&R NZ and TVNZ then partnered use NZ’s highest rating current affairs show, Sunday, to get the message across to Kiwi families. The story stirred up incredible reactions on the TVNZ Sunday Facebook page, and was then also picked up by TV One Breakfast, NZ Herald, Stuff.co.nz, NZ Women’s Weekly, and more.
Caroline Perry from Brake stated, “Road crashes have devastating consequences for families and the effects last a lifetime. The aim with this campaign is to look not only at lost lives, but also lost potential and lost futures. Living Memories has given these five families an opportunity to see what their child might have looked like, and demonstrates to the rest of us the lasting impact that crashes have.”
“Meeting the families and presenting them the portraits was a profoundly moving experience and I hope that this campaign will touch people in a meaningful way” added Lisa Dupre, senior art director, Y&R NZ.
The Living Memories project will also be seen in print, social, online and outdoor media.
Creative credits:
Agency: Y&R NZ
Chief creative officer & chief executive officer: Josh Moore
Creative directors: Scott Henderson, Seymour Pope
Senior art director: Lisa Dupre
Head producer: Christina Hazard
Executive Digital Producer: Bruce Murray
Digital Producer: Pat Co
Digital production company: Weta Digital
Editors: James (Squid) Kelly, Pat O’Sullivan
DoP: Will Moore
Forensic specialist: Kevin Darch
TVNZ: Joanne Mitchell, Briar McCormack
Researcher: Alison Horwood
