Texting and driving is still prevalent throughout the world and a major cause of road deaths. That’s why there are still numerous road safety PSA campaigns on the subject. Unfortunately, data shows that these ‘don’t text and drive’-campaigns no longer have the impact needed to change really our behaviour. In order to change that the organization Parents of Road Victims asked us to come with a radical new take in preventing texting and driving.
Describe the creative idea
BlindMeters.com, a first of its kind platform that gives everybody concrete insight in how many meters they exactly miss when texting and driving. BlindMeters.com is geo-located and turns Google Maps into a text editor, allowing you to type on any road. A custom-made font connects to the speed limitation data of the specific road you’re typing on and stretches to the exact number of meters you miss when texting and driving.
To do so we programmed an algorithm that connects different databases and layers them onto one website, together with a specially designed font made for the purpose of dynamically stretch.
Describe the execution
The launch of BlindMeters.com played out across various channels like TV, Cinema, bannering, Google Adwords, Influencer strategy, etc… The design part of the idea however is at the heart of the platform. To create BlindMeters.com we programmed an algorithm that connects different databases and layers them onto one website. That allows you to type on any Google Maps road. Then we created a custom designed font with a typographer. The purpose of the font was to dynamically stretch to the exact amount of meters you miss when texting and driving. A clear case of design and data at the core to create impact.
List the results
Data shows that people kind of became immune to the road safety ‘don’t text and drive’-campaigns. The new take on this old problem, BlindMeters.com, was able to brake that immunity from the start. People engaged. Massively. Over 5 million blind meters were typed on the platform BlindMeters.com after just 24 hours. The press immediately joined the conversation. Literally all National and Regional newspapers, all news-sites and all National TV-channels covered BlindMeters.com. Resulting in millions and millions of meters of press coverage. You can imagine the value. But this is only the start of something much bigger. In the mean-time the National Police authority is working to make BlindMeters.com an official part of the driving education of Belgian driving schools. BlindMeters.com will also extend in other European countries like France, Portugal and Slovenia soon.