Winners & Shortlists

#SEATBELTB00BING

Title#SEATBELTB00BING
BrandAUTOMOBIL CLUBUL ROMAN
Product/ServiceSEATBELT AWARENESS
Category B02. BEST LOW BUDGET CAMPAIGN
Entrant Company PUBLICIS ROMANIA Bucherest, ROMANIA
Advertising Agency PUBLICIS ROMANIA Bucherest, ROMANIA
Credits
Name Company Position
Jorg Riommi Publicis Romania Chief Creative Officer
Razvan Capanescu Publicis Romania Chief Creative Officer
Mihnea Gheorghiu Publicis Romania Group Creative Director
Diana Papuc Publicis Romania Art Director
Cosmin Baba Publicis Romania Copywriter
Miruna Macri Publicis Romania Junior Art Director
Alexandra Murray Publicis Romania Client Service Director
Raluca Iacob Publicis Romania Head Of Strategy
Andreea Grigorean Publicis Romania Pr Officer
Ada Iftodi Publicis Romania Senior Account Executive
Calin Buzea Publicis Romania Head Of Digital
Dragos Musat Publicis Romania Head Of Digital Content Development/Director
Ciprian Frunzeanu Publicis Romania Senior Graphic Designer
Tiberiu Bucovei Publicis Romania Head Of Programming
Constantin Bunica Publicis Romania Programmer
Veronica Oancea Publicis Romania Digital Account Director
Victoria Sirbu Publicis Romania Digital Account Executive
Oana Bulexa MSLGROUP The Practice Co/Managing Director
Camelia Eremia MSLGROUP The Practice Client Service Director
Ilinca Munteanu MSLGROUP The Practice Social Media Manager

The Brief

In 2014, 6 out of 10 Romanian drivers don’t wear their seatbelts, despite all efforts made by the police. To change this reality the Romanian Automobile Club (ACR) wanted to make seatbelt a “must wear” accessory that gets everyone talking about it. Unfortunately as social issues go, road safety wasn't on people's radar. With more high profile social causes like adopting stray dogs or bike lanes issue we needed to do something to grab our audience's attention. We needed to leverage both social media and traditional PR to drive awareness and engagement, and affect behavior change.

Creative Execution

Embracing the importance of social media dynamics, we chose to avoid the typical patronizing voice of authority and create something we hoped people would genuinely want to share. The key insight that inspired our thinking was this: in the year of selfie people were most interested in looks than anything else. This is when we decided to turn the ordinary seatbelt into the trendiest and most talked about accessory to wear. The campaign went instantly viral and attracted celebrities and several national TV stations to join the initiative.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Our challenge was simple. Turn a message that people needed to hear, but ignored, into a message people wanted to hear and share. We created #seatbeltb00bing – a hashtag that encouraged women drivers to take selfies wearing the seatbelt and upload them on social media. As a result Romanian women joined the cause and became the ambassadors of our safety message, reaching everyone: – women encouraging each other to take a photo while wearing the seatbelt – men, who were finally faced with a road safety message that they could not ignore

Results

The number of conversation in social media (over 900,000 in only 2 weeks) convinced celebrities to join and contribute by promoting the hashtag in social network. The power of celebrities and TV free support helped us reach 7 million Romanians out of which 68% of total Romanian internet population. It was for the first time a Romanian road safety message became headline in countries like France, Denmark, Austria, UK, USA, Mexico, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia reaching 197.405.629 impressions worldwide. The hashtag generated $492.000 worth of free media becoming the most popular cause-related hashtag ever in Romania.