A world-first campaign over social media platform Snapchat aims to bring a serious safety message to young Kiwi stoners.
For the past several weeks the NZ Transport Agency has been working with US-based Snapchat on an innovative campaign targeting young New Zealand drug users to raise awareness of the dangers of driving while under the influence of marijuana.
“Drug driving is serious and a growing problem with young drivers in New Zealand and around the world. The problem is that many of these guys don’t want to hear that what they’re doing is dangerous, and they’re experts at tuning out conventional advertising messages,” says Transport Agency spokesperson Andy Knackstedt.
“Our research tells us that many of these drivers actually think they’re safer when driving stoned, because they slow down. But that’s the problem – they may be driving slower, but their reaction times are also a lot slower, and that’s what leads to crashes.”
A new approach was needed to reach an audience that doesn’t want to be reached, so in a world-first for a road safety campaign, the Transport Agency teamed up with Snapchat to set up and seed ‘Tinnyvision’, an account fronted by a likeable group of young Kiwis.
The video snaps for the campaign were directed by Taika Waititi (Boy, Eagle vs Shark), who also filmed the Transport Agency’s award-winning Blazed drug-driving television advertisements which set records on YouTube and has clocked up more than two million views online.
The Snapchat campaign easily achieved its initial goal of reaching 7,500 people, with 95% of those watching the full series of snaps and viewing the road safety message at the end. Commentary on social media has been overwhelmingly positive, with thousands of likes and hundreds of positive comments.
The Tinnyvision snaps have been packaged together to be used for advertising and promotion, with more than 200,000 views on YouTube(external link) already.
