Kill your speed, or live with it

00.00 | 30 November 2011 |

 The new THINK! speed campaign, which launched on 30 January, encourages drivers to slow down and stick to the speed limit – and asks them to consider the long term impact on their own lives if they kill a child while speeding.

The new TV ad follows a man as he goes about his daily life. It opens with him brushing his teeth in the morning and shows him on a bus, in the office, walking with his son in the park, at his computer at home and in bed at night.

In each scene the figure of a dead boy appears, always in the same position – crumpled and lying on the ground with one arm flung across the other. The boy is the child the man hit while speeding and he can never forget this image of him.

In the final scene, the man turns over in bed and sees the boy lying at the foot of the door. The endline appears: ‘Kill your speed, or live with it’ and ‘It’s 30 for a reason’.

The campaign was developed over 12 months and builds on the work of the previous ‘Lucky’ campaign, which pointed out that if you hit a child at 30mph they have an 80% chance of living, but if you hit them at 40mph they have an 80% chance of dying.

While awareness about speeding has increased, last year nearly 50% of vehicles broke the speed limit on 30mph roads. And in a recent survey more than 70% of drivers admitted to speeding (Source: BMRB 2007).

Campaign development research showed that the strongest approach would be to focus on the consequences a driver faces if they kill an innocent person while speeding. The lifetime of guilt that killing another person brings was enough to puncture the feeling that ‘accidents only happen to someone else’.

Media activity will run on the following dates:

• TV advertising – 2 Feb to 30 March. (post 7.30pm)
• Cinema advertising – 27 Feb to 26 March
• Radio advertising – 2 Feb to 22 March
• Online advertising (including a THINK! speed page on YouTube) – 2 Feb to 30 March

New RSO posters are available to order from the THINK! website in A2, A3 and A4 sizes. The current speed leaflet is still available to order and will be updated later in the year.

Click here to view the ad.

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