PSAs we really need: School Bus Passing

I can't find it anywhere on line, but the vintage road safety PSA is burned into my Gen-X brain. The beginning is a little fuzzy, but it shows school kids (my age, at the time) getting off a school bus with its stop sign out and its lights flashing. A car ignores the signals — and the legal requirement to stop — and the spot ends with an echoing scream and a freeze frame on one of the little girls, books in hand, looking in horror as she's about to be killed.

Old-school shock advertising, But let me tell you, when I was getting my Driver's Licence a decade later, I sure as Hell knew you don't pass a school bus with its lights flashing on a two-lane street.

And yet, in the past month, I have personally witnessed four separate examples of cars zipping past stopped school busses with all their signals out. The bus driver honked, but they didn't even slow down. Whether they were younger drivers or moved here from elsewhere, I don't think they saw the spot.

They should. It's amazing how some of the rules of the road that we take for granted seem to be off the radar for many drivers. Every day, I see examples of drivers running red lights and stop signs at intersections, cutting off pedestrian crosswalks, and failing to pull over when an emergency vehicle is trying to get through, sirens wailing. (Yeah, I live and work downtown.)

I could wax all moralistic about the selfishness of our current urban society, but I think social marketing has a role to play here. We need to keep these basic road safety messages out there, and we need to find creative ways of hammering them home.

Take something as simple as seat belts. People in Europe are slow to buckle up. But the Embrace Life campaign that has been burning up the viral world (I keep receiving it from friends and colleagues, even though in some cases I'm the one who originally shared it with them!) is putting the issue on the radar worldwide. (If you want more background on the campaign, Marc from the global social marketing blog Osocio sent me a collaborative interview they conducted with the client, published on Facebook.)

The era of '70s Drivers' Ed shock films may be over, but the need for strong messages on basic road safety is as great as ever. If anyone in the private, public or NGO sectors is interested in trying to develop a partnership for a new campaign on school bus safety, send me a live at results[at sign]acart.com, and write "attn. Tom" in the header.

MADD takes a hard left towards denormalization

Adrants yesterday posted some new ads for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, created by TBWA Toronto.

Here's one:



It's funny. It's thought-provoking. And it's a complete change of course for an organization that traditionally uses shock and guilt to hammer home the anti-drinking and driving message:



So, what happened? Obviously, someone at MADD has decided to give "Denormalization" a try.

A tactic in anti-smoking campaigns for decades, denormalization campaigns seek to make previously tolerated behaviours socically unacceptable by exposing them to ridicule or redefining them as just plain dumb.

Let's look at another of MADD's new approach:



The beauty of these ads is not just in the writing, but the casting. These guys look like lifelong drunkards, the dumbass who sits next to you at the bar, tells secondhand stories, then leaves you wondering how he's getting home.



(It's a shame they didn't use the URL, drivebackroads.ca, for some additional viral outreach. It's currently parked on godaddy.)

One of the principals behind denormalization is social shaming through satire. While it is embraced by many current social marketing campaigns, the practice is as old as western civilization. From Greek and Roman playwrights and poets, to Jonathan Swift, to The Onion, hilarious and often brutal satire has been a popular tactic for pushing social self-awareness — and ultimately change.



But will it get through the the thick heads of the hardcore drunk drivers? Probably not. But that's not the point.

According to our longtime client and office neighbour, The Traffic Injury Research Foundation, the repeat offenders need to be dealt with in a more scientific way, through well-informed policies and legislation. That's the other aspect of social change. (Think of how workplace smoking bans almost eliminated indoor social smoking in a very short time, after years of social marketing had had little impact on youth.)

The purpose of satire, or denormalization, isn't to make the offenders see the error of their ways. It's intended to emphasize the unacceptability of their behaviour to people who might otherwise be complacent about it. When we all join in to laugh at the buffoon, then the real power of social shaming comes into play. You might even report them, as the call-to-action asks.

Good campaign. I hope MADD keeps up this more sophisticated approach in their social marketing.