Public-to-Public Message Conveying
Have you been watching the TV recently? Did the “Look Out For Me” advertisement catch your attention for a split second? For me, it did and I love it. I am not sure how this came about but it’s fantastic to see such an advertisement adopt this tactic again. Enough of statistics, enough of celebrities endorsement or even some gruesome pictures on the cigarettes packaging.
Statutory boards traditionally use death statistics or the scare factor in most of their campaigns. In this instance, the Singapore Traffic Police has a glorious history of those. Remember how we used to see a man being hit and flipped over a speeding car? Does the sight of a puddle of blood beside a toppled motorcycle seemed familiar to you? Maybe, the cracking beerglass similar to that of a shattered windscreen rings a bell? Scary images, all used to send that important message to viewers.
Did any of those truly scare us?
Well, the answer is crisp clear. Not even public disclosure of drink-drivers statistics dipped this fatal habit. No amount of gruesome pictures can make smokers quit if they do not wish to. Therefore, the scare tactic is dead before the viewers are.
What I like about this advertisement is the passive mode of conveying that critical message. Is this an import of social media principles into traditional advertisement? We’re always price consumer interaction above the one-way message dissemination by corporations. No bloodied scene, no dead bodies, no crashed cars. Simply, from members of public to YOU.
True, they’re all actors. But, they’re actors from all ages just like anyone else you see on the roads. I believe this passive approach will be more fruitful because it is just like your friends asking a favour from you. If your friend is seeking your help to look out for him while he changed his flat tyre with his back facing the traffic, would you say no? If your sibling request that you look out for her child while backing your car into the porch, would you reject her? So now, someone’s asking if you could drive safe and look out for him/her, would you turn your back?
One message - many applications. Drink-driving, speeding, beating the red light etc.
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EDISON ROWAN LEE
Ed savors the building of conversations and always prospecting the inception of values beyond the usual puffery.
Recent Comments
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- DK on Metrics Are So Yesterday!: Great article. You should have come for SMB4. They were talking about this too.
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