Mission: to upset, outrage and appal: 25 years of the TAC – and their 25 most powerful ads
Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission has just celebrated its 25th birthday. Robin Hicks looks back at the most powerful ads in its history, and wonders what makes effective road safety advertising.
When the TAC was created in 1987, it declared a mission to ‘upset, outrage and appal’ Victorians to reduce the number of road deaths in the state.
For an ad agency, that is quite a brief.
The TAC began advertising in December 1989, appointing Grey Melbourne, an agency that it has worked with ever since. Twenty-three years later, the state boasts the safest roads in Australia.
Step 1. Induce behaviour change by scaring the bejezus out of people.
Step 2. Reclaim the term “social marketing” from facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit.
Doesn’t the graph point to a uniform national decline? Other States started higher, and finished higher, but seem to have fallen in tandem.
/agrees with toby. The graph does not show what the story says it does.
The graph starts in 2003, 14 years after the TAC work first appeared, so I’m not sure that it’s anywhere near relevant. If it shows anything, it’s that the TAC work is no more effective than the work done in other states over the last 9 years.
My personal opinion is that reduction in road fatalities has as much to do with improved safety technologies (airbags, etc) and stricter laws regarding drink/driving, the introduction of 50 zones, etc… as it does this campaign.
I’d also imagine that the effect of the campaign is nowhere near what it was back in the day. You kinda get used to the TAC style now, and I reckon it’s time for them to reinvent the formula.
Still a great campaign though.
Well done to John and the whole TAC team (past and present) and Randall and Nigel and the team at Grey. Any agency would be proud of the body of work and impact this campaign has had. What is little known is how the TAC work has also influenced car manufacturers not to cut corners when it comes to active and passive safety features. No doubt there are many other aspects of driver saftey that these campaigns have influenced. Deserved kudos for doing something that has genuienly saved Australian lives.
Stricter laws have probably been partly driven by the effects of this type of advertising though. The advertising reached the politicians who initiate change, and the people who, a few years ago, wrote letters to the paper.
As well, this is an interesting topic because it’s been contested. Many passionate groups opposed safety measures such as speed cameras and even seat belts. I think the strong advertising support played a role in overcoming the objections of those critics.
I remember these ads as a young girl living in Melbourne and although they were horrific, they were brilliant and set out what they aimed to acheive – reducing road accidents and relaxed attitudes toward safe driving.
Wish they had these ads here in Queensland, Im sure we would see alot less people taking crazy risks on the roads.
Great Stuff, As a volunteer emergency services personnel in country WA, I have seen some of this happen. I can be a bloody mess at the time… the next day usually hurts a bloody sight more!
@Hmmm is correct. Research by the Australian Government’s Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics shows that almost all the reduction in road fatalities since the 1960s is due to:
mandatory seat belts
random breath testing
the introduction of speed cameras.
A lot of commenters here seem to be assuming that the advertising claims to be totally responsible for the reduction. Not so.
TAC advertising has always been part of of a three tier strategy: education, enforcement, and engineering.
Better engieering, i.e. improving the safety of both vehicles and road design has contributed. As has enforcement; putting booze buses where people couldn’t avoid getting tested was just as powerful a means of changing actual drink drive behaviour as the ads were in changing attitudes to that behaviour. But the ads themselves were very powerful.
Congratulations to the entire team for an object lesson in how to do it right: client, advertising and research agencies all working together in pursuit of a long-term goal.
@Shanghai, I think the problem we have is that the statistics in the article — and other authoritative research, like the BITRE report I mentioned — suggest the advertising has had no effect at all.
Im not convinced the advertising had no impact. The available stats simply suggest that it had the same impact as other campaigns nationally
Great directors, wonderful work. Bit of an oversight missing Mat Humphrey off the list though, considering he directed Combi and a significant chunk of the work that won internationally…Haunted, Never and more.
Mat Humphrey has directed more TAC Commercial’s then any other director.
He won International awards with Greg and Rob way back in 94 for ‘Nightshift’ then ‘Bush Telegraph’ and ‘Motherless Child’.
He won more international awards with Nigel for ‘Never’ and ‘Haunted’.
He directed the extremely successful ‘Ken Lay’ campaign and last years ‘Bloody idoit’ spot for Pete and Nigel.
That’s 18 years for great work.
Yes, perhaps a bit of an oversight to miss Mat Humphrey off the list of directors.
Having come across this article a couple of weeks ago (and watched the ads) I’ve since made an effort to be more careful on the road. I think it’s safe to say they’ve influenced driver behaviour (as well as pressure on law makers and car manufacturers) in regards to road safety.
Mum in a hurry really stood out for me – she’s not the typical drink driver/rev head you see in a commercial targetting road safety.