We decided to raise awareness among the highest-risk segment; college students. We needed to prove to young drivers that texting and driving are a deadly mix, and shake them out of their apathy.
But a press ad or poster just wouldn't cut it for the thumbing generation. We had to do something they just couldn't ignore.
And to achieve this, we combined the language of texting with the consequences of texting.
The Brief
UAE residents are 7 times more likely to die in car accidents, compared to the UK. One of the
leading causes is texting and driving. Even after losing a national football star and renewed
police enforcement, the number of accidents continued to rise.
Nissan's innovations are designed to keep drivers safe. But even the most advance technology
is powerless when drivers are distracted. So they wanted to make people aware of the dangers of texting and driving.
How the final design was conceived
We created a Crash Text Dummy, a towering sculpture in the shape of the popular text shortcut
'FYI', made purely from smashed car parts. For several days, we visited scrapyards, looking
through hundreds of smashed cars for parts that we then welded together into a 1.8m tall
sculpture weighing over a ton. A smashed window, a bent wheel, a ruptured car door, a burnt seat, a ripped teddy bear, each conjured up the accident it came from.
A banner contained a QR code that when scanned, prompts the youth to
post a message on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market
The sculpture made its way around Dubai campuses. In just 7 days, thousands got the
message. The press covered it, as well as TV and radio stations. Over 500 people forwarded it
to their friends and family on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest via the QR code, reaching
exponentially more people across their social media networks.