Bush fires given a voice as JWT creative aims to strike fear into nonchalant homeowners
Bush fires have been personalised and portrayed as deliberate home-wreckers in a new awareness campaign from the NSW Rural Fire Service, J Walter Thompson and GPY&R Sydney.
A series of TVCs has been created each highlighting the speed, danger and unpredictability of bush fires, while pre-roll, print executions, digital banners and radio spots will also feature.
The material will form the foundations of the bushfire campaign for the next three years, and also includes an online hub, MyFirePlan.com.au, which sets out ways homeowners can protect their properties.
In the spots, fire is given a voice and explains to viewers how it can destroy the homes and lives of people who think they are safe.
JWT executive planning director, Angela Morris, said: “We needed to reframe risk and discovered that people are less afraid of a risk they think they have some control over and more afraid of risks that are personified than anonymous.”
Executive creative director, Simon Langley, added: “This campaign makes it brutally clear that since fire has a plan for your destruction, you also better have one for your own protection.
“The creative approach of personifying fire as a sinister force that knows exactly what it’s going to do and how it’s going to do it, was developed to make people feel personally at risk.
“Combined with compelling facts about what fire is capable of, including how easily and quickly it can move and take down homes, we hope it will drive NSW residents to get prepared for the upcoming bush fire season.”
NSW Rural Fire Service director of corporate communications, Anthony Clark, said research has shown that even people living in high risk areas do not consider themselves to be personally at risk from bush fires.
“Around half of those in at-risk areas believe their property would survive a bush fire, even if they had made no preparation,” he said. “But the reality is that bush fires are an annual threat across NSW.
“There are approximately 1.3 million properties at risk from bush fires in NSW, occupied by around 3 million people. The NSW RFS needed a high-impact, attention grabbing campaign to reiterate that there is a very real risk for many people, and that simple steps like having a conversation can make a big difference.”
Credits:
Creative agency – J. Walter Thompson Sydney
Executive creative director – Simon Langley
Associate creative director – John Lam
Creative group head – Laurie Geddes
Senior art director – Simon Cox
Executive planning director – Angela Morris
Production Company – The Pool Collective
Director: Simon Harsent
MD: Cameron Gray
Line producer: Kare Godsell
DOP: Ross Giardina
Pyrotechnician: Lou Stefanel, Pyromania
Media: UM
Digital Hub: GPY&R
Research: GFK
