2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

The Brief: The average speed on the highways of Dubai is 127 km/h. Unsurprisingly, speeding has been one of the biggest causes of death. Road safety is now one of the biggest priorities of the Roads & Transport Authority. In September 2014, the RTA tasked us with getting everyday commuters to stop speeding. The Strategy: The laws of the city already demand safe driving. However, habits are stronger than laws. So we set out to change the speeding habit to a safe driving habit.

Creative Execution

The Paper Cars addressed one of the biggest safety concerns in Dubai. Speeding. They challenged a dangerous assumption – that cars are safe at any speed. No one had told people their cars, with their steel reinforced chassis, 5-star safety ratings and all, were only as strong as paper at high speeds. No one had built life-sized paper cars either and taken them around the city to promote safe driving either. Simple, straightforward and truthful – the Paper Cars mirror the Road & Transport Authority's tone of voice.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

At 100 km/h, your car is only as strong as paper. If you knew your car was that fragile at high speeds, you would surely drive slower and safer. To show people this, we built life-sized paper cars and took them all round the city. In just 2 weeks, hundreds of thousands of people signed the cars making a personal pledge to drive slower. They took up our cause on social media. Thanks to their support, we saw an immediate change in speeding fatalities and casualties in Dubai.

Results

In just 2 weeks, 50,000 people signed our Paper Cars and made a personal pledge to drop their speed. Hundreds of thousands of people gave the Paper Cars a voice on social media urging friends and family to join in. 4 national dailies and 3 regional dailies threw their weight behind the Paper Cars campaign unprompted. Thanks to the support of the people and the media, speeding casualties went down by 7% in just 5 months. And speeding dropped to being the 5th leading cause of death in Dubai.