Winners & Shortlists

#SEATBELTB00BING

Title#SEATBELTB00BING
BrandAUTOMOBIL CLUBUL ROMAN
Product/ServiceSEATBELT AWARENESS
Category D02. COSTS/CREATIVE PERFORMANCE PR 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
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
Miruna Macri Publicis Romania Junior Art Director
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 Campaign

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. We decided to turn the seatbelt into the trendiest and most talked about accessory to wear. That’s why we created a very simple, but very hard to ignore campaign: #seatbeltb00bing. Our hashtag encouraged women drivers to take selfies while wearing the seatbelt and upload them to social media. More and more local celebrities and several tv stations joined the initiative and urged others to do the same. Overnight, from an ignored item, the seatbelt became the trendiest and the most talked about accessory in Romania and not only. Our campaign made headlines on Euronews, CBS, Yahoo and GQ, amongst others. From the US to Thailand and from Mexico to Japan, it was for the first time that a Romanian PSA spread far and wide. For the price of a hashtag, we’ve reached 7 million Romanians and generated $492.000 worth of free media, making #seatbeltb00bing the most popular cause-related hashtag ever in Romania.

The Brief

Our challenge was simple. Turn a message that people needed to hear, but ignored, into a message people wanted to hear and share. (1) Increase public awareness and engagement with road safety (there was no sufficient data to provide us with a benchmark prior to this campaign. This campaign was designed to set measurable objectives in terms of awareness & engagement moving forward) (2) Generate PR, buzz and sharing around our message about road safety. Although an exact Key Performance Indicator (KPI) could not be determined, there was an expectation that the campaign would generate earned media on and offline

Results

1. Leverage social media power to launch the cause The invitation to use the hashtag for a good cause attracted thousands of Romanian women to contribute to our campaign. 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. As a result several tv stations joined the initiative and urged others to do the same. 2. Amplify through the power of pr 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.

Execution

We created #seatbeltb00bing – a hashtag that encouraged women drivers to take selfies wearing the seatbelt and upload them on social media. The campaign went instantly viral and attracted celebrities and several national tv stations to join the initiative. 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 We gathered and amplified user generated content making our campaign message quickly spread around the world.

The Situation

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 behaviour change.

The Strategy

Turning a message people needed to hear, into a message people want to share. 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 challenge of having a message that is traditionally invisible meant we needed to re-frame the conversation in a way that was hyper engaging and sharable. 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.