Floodsafe ads call out mates for playing in animal waste
Melbourne agency Loud&Clear has created a three part ad campaign for State Emergency Services aimed at dissuading young men from playing in flood water as it may contain animal waste.
The first Floodsafe week ad features a young man reclining in an inflatable ring with a drinks cooler at his feet, chips in hand, speakers and an umbrella, but is made to stop and think about what he’s floating in by a passing friend.
The campaign targeted at teenagers and young men in regional areas of the state was directed by Kieran Watson-Bonnise and filmed in Northcote, Victoria.
In the second and third clips of the series, the informed friend goes into more detail, and uses more colourful language, to list the types of animal waste likely to be in the floodwater.
Producer Joel Beath: “SES Victoria gave us a really interesting brief; sell Floodsafe week to the demographic that least responds to “tell” marketing; teenagers and young men. Our research showed us that ‘peer to peer conversation’ was the biggest activator for this age group.
“Fear, of injury, death, animal corpses didn’t really factor with the age group. If we could reframe playing in flood water to become less a source of glory and more of a ‘shameful’ activity, we’d be able to activate members of the demographic to start calling out their mates for literally playing in poo.”
Lachlan Quick (Manager Media and Community Information) from Victoria SES, said: “It’s the first time we’ve targeted emergency or public safety information specifically to young males and we needed a better way to connect.
“You can speak at, or tell, young males as much as you like. They tend to block it out regardless. But to get behaviour change results, even at a micro level, you need to tailor the message accordingly ideally for this demographic, with humour and a nudge and I think that’s what we’ve got with the Floodsafe videos. We’re very pleased with the result so far.”
“Right, we want you to create an ad to stop people swimming in stormwater run-off that possibly has animal shit in it…” Man, that’s one tough brief!
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Who’s playing in flood water at this time of year? Shit time to communicate this stinkfist of a message.
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Quick.. we should do one for the ocean. Do you know how many fish shit in the ocean? Its disgusting.
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Is this the biggest ‘problem’ arising out of floods – people playing in the water…
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Crystal meth addiction, drink drivers, domestic violence and mental health are all important issues that Australia is struggling to deal with.
Swimming in poo has now joined the conversation?
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If that’s the dude in the ad, it’ll never fly, Orville. Nowhere near enough tattooed and slack-jawed to register with that demographic.
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It’ll never fly, Orville. Dude nowhere near enough tattooed and slack-jawed to register with that demographic. Open to reasoning from stitched-up straighty-180 mate, assuming your classic death-widh bogan had one? Yeah, yeah. When are these agencies ever going to hire someone from Mt Druitt, Sunshine or Inala?
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And the reason they had to film this in a 6inch deep gently flowing stream of clean drinking water was that if they actually filmed it in a flooded river, safety concerns aside, it would have looked like way too much fun and next flood season we would see a plethora of young blokes with their tubes hitting the “arse water”.
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Is this really a problem that requires the community service announcement treatment? How often does it flood, and sufficiently that people could swim in it? I would have thought the major problem at the moment is the *lack* of rain, indeed many areas are back in drought. What a pointless campaign and a monumental waste of money.
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