THINK! publicity head outlines two-year plan

The THINK! team has developed a two-year publicity approach that has the approval of the secretary of state, Douglas Alexander and the roads minister, Stephen Ladyman.

Background
The second three year road safety review highlights drink driving, speeding and seatbelt wearing as the priority behaviours that need addressing; and young drivers, motorcyclists and those who drive for work as the most ‘at risk’ groups. The THINK! team has taken its lead from this in planning priorities.

“Our strategic approach is based on the hypothesis that in order to change behaviour of the few - in this case largely young men - you need to target the whole of society to make the target behaviour socially unacceptable,” says Fiona Seymour (pictured), THINK’s head of publicity. “This has been the publicity approach since the launch of the THINK! campaign in 2000.

“However, following last year’s strategic review we have been supplementing this activity with marketing initiatives which focus on specific high risk road user groups - motorcyclists, people who drive for work and young drivers - and we plan to expand on this approach over the next two years.”

The child road safety strategy has identified that the decline in road accidents among 11-15 year olds has been less than that among younger children - and that boys and children living in deprived areas are over represented in KSI figures. Again, this report will be used to guide priorities.

“Our approach has been to plan our priorities over a two year period in order to get best value out of financial and other resources,” Fiona Seymour adds. “In practice this means that we will be running publicity across the full list of priorities - but in the first year we will spend resource on developing new material in some areas while running existing material in others, and in the second year this position will be reversed.”

Two year plan
Year 1 priorities for developing new campaign material are:

• Developing a new multi-media drink drive campaign
• Developing a young driver engagement strategy
• Expanding the driving for work campaign currently targeting van drivers, to include other road user groups in this category
• Increasing leisure motorbike sports sponsorship activity
• Developing a strategy for 10 - 11 year olds
• Developing a parents’ communications strategy
• Working in partnership with MTV to target teenagers

In year 2 the focus will be on:

• Developing a new approach to drug driving
• Developing a new rural and urban speed campaign
• Developing a new seatbelt campaign
• Reviewing the 7-9 year old strategy

Click here for more detail about this approach.

“While television will continue to play a major role in our publicity strategy, the media market is fragmenting and the main TV channels are losing audience, particularly young men,” Fiona Seymour adds.

“We will therefore put an increasing amount of energy into developing other strategies to reach our audiences - including working with the commercial sector and other partners, and looking for less conventional ways of reaching people in contexts where they are most likely to be making decisions around road use behaviours.

“The THINK! team has been marketing industry leaders in this area,” Fiona concludes.

The outline media plan on the THINK! website will be updated as detailed plans develop, and the new-look THINK! website has all the creative work available for RSOs to view and order.

For further information contact Fiona Seymour, Fiona.Seymour@dft.gsi.gov.uk or visit http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk