SA Police asks drink drivers to stop being 'Selfish Pricks' via Black Sheep Advertising

Paige Murphy
By Paige Murphy | 26 March 2021
 

South Australian Police (SAPOL) has launched a controversial road safety campaign, Drink Drive. Selfish Prick., via Black Sheep Advertising which targets drink driving.

“It’s challenging to keep coming up with new and impactful road safety campaigns,” SAPOL manager media road safety Richard Blackwell says.

“So this campaign approaches the issue from a different perspective and delivers it with a punch.”

Black Sheep Advertising creative director and principal Andrew Millar says insights have shown that the number one reasion people choose to drink drive is convenience.

“So we wanted to get into the heads of drink drivers and contrast their excuses with the potential consequences for themselves and those around them," Millar says.

“At its core, we realised drink driving is one of the most selfish thing you can do.”

Inspired somewhat by the classic Bloody Idiot campaign, this campaign delivers the message from the perspective of the drink driver featured.

“It was important that this message wasn’t delivered to the target audience from the mouth of the police. People would ignore it,” Millar says.

“We didn’t want people wearing their drink driving efforts on their shirts as a badge of pride.”

The primary target for this campaign, as with many drink driving campaigns are young males, often regular pub-goers, who repeatedly drink and then drive.

It was this audience, as well as the recent horrific road toll, particularly among young men that helped get the choice to use the controversial word ‘Prick’ across the line.

The campaign was shown to South Australian drink drivers to determine if it had been taken too far and if the public would be offended.

“The overwhelming response was that if it gets drink drivers off the road and gets them to change the behaviour, then it’s worth it,” Blackwell says.

The Drink Drive. Selfish Prick. campaign launches Friday March 26 across free-to-air, catch-up TV, cinema, radio, outdoor, transit, digital and within venues.

This is the first campaign Black Sheep Advertising has produced for SAPOL.

Credits

Client: SAPOL
Manager, Media Road Safety: Richard Blackwell
Creative Agency: Black Sheep Advertising
Creative Director: Andrew Millar
Account Director: Tom Ootes
Senior Account Manager: Daniel Wilde
Creative: Danilo Watanabe, Julie Martin, Franwyn Botha, Michael Gagliardi
Strategic Consultants: John McLaren, Peter Withy
Production Company: Proetic
Producer: Erica Ockenden
Director: David Ockenden
DOP: Miles Rowland
Sound: Seeing Sounds
Post Production: Visualizm
Photographer: Richard Lyons
Social Videos: Riley Scott
Casting: Heesom Casting
Media Agency: Wavemaker

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