Diego's Marketing Blog (catchy huh?)

“So they are in Zealand, and it’s raining. They’re speeding on the highway. It’s a pretty ordinary day, until of course they see a ginormous kid covered in blood staring at them!” Nope, it’s not a scene from Saw or Scream; it’s the new awareness campaign in Papakura, New Zealand.

This is a new campaign attempting to create awareness of the dangers of driving in the rain. Most of the “Drive responsibly” billboards that I have seen, usually use guilt as a weapon, but this one takes it one step further. Basically, on a regular sunny day…. oops! forgot we live in Vancouver… on a rare sunny day, the billboard shows the image of a kid and a banner in the bottom that reads “rain changes everything. Please drive to the conditions.” Sure the kid looks a bit pale, but other than that the billboard is pretty standard. That’s until it starts raining though, when it comes in contact with water, the billboard starts “bleeding.” See it for yourself .

I thought this was a very intelligent ad that promotes not a product or a service, but an idea or a value. But what’s best is that it is actually effective: no more accidents!

 Not gonna lie though, I would’ve thought accidents would increase just because of startled drivers completely ignoring the road at the sight of a billboard that could very well have come out of a horror movie…