Mother’s Day ads pull on the heart strings

Grey Group has created a hard-hitting ad campaign aimed at discouraging young men from speeding by making them think of how their mother would feel about losing them.

The campaign timed for Mother’s Day has been created for Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission. The campaign is the first to be launched by TAC since Simon Strahan took charge of marketing at the organisation at the start of this month following the departure of John Thompson.

Print ads run in the Herald-Sun, The Age and mX in Melbourne on Thursday and feature a rose-covered Mother’s Day card from one angle, and a sympathy card if the ad is turned upside down.

As the reader turns the paper around they find the more serious message “For Mum’s sake, slow down” and see the logo for the Transport Accident Commission.

In the radio ad, scheduled to be played on Triple M, Fox and Nova, as well as several regional stations on Saturday and Sunday, a mother whose son was killed in a road accident breaks down with grief while making her own Mother’s Day breakfast.

The listener is drawn into the rush of her scurrying around the kitchen breaking eggs, burning toast, spilling coffee, and then making the bacon, which inspires her grief as she says it’s, “Just how my boy would have made it.”

Listen to the ad: 

A team of young creatives at the Grey Group proactively developed the 30 second radio ad and picture ad.

Account director Jodi Gubana said: “The ads are an emotional reminder of the devastating consequences of speeding, and the grief experienced by those who have lost a child to road trauma – like the mums who are left to grieve each Mother’s Day.”

Speed kills more than half of young male drivers aged between 18 and 25 who die in road traffic accidents, Ms Gubana said, and the ad aims to reach them.

“We’ve done other Mother’s Day ads in the past but this has more of an emotional tune to it. It’s that pain that continues on, the ripple effect,” Ms Gubana said.

“It’s very emotive, particularly the radio ad because you can hear the pain in the mother’s voice like a mum might be on Mother’s Day.

“I think the concept is clever by letting us put their logo upside down. It looks like a typical Mother’s Day ad and it gets your attention because you turn it upside down and it has another message.”

Megan Reynolds 

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.