Transport for NSW
Plan B

Problem: Drink driving is one of the largest causes of death and injury on NSW roads. In 2011, there were over 70 people killed and 1182 people injured in crashes involving drivers who were over the legal blood alcohol limit. Men make up 87 per cent of drink drivers involved in fatal crashes.

Insight: Previous road safety campaigns had historically employed a standardised approach to messaging - the likelihood of being caught by a Police officer, and the consequences of being caught. Research suggested that our target audience was largely immune to these kinds of ‘shock and awe’ enforcement messages.

Strategy: With practical options to avoid drink driving, Plan B takes a humorous and positive approach designed to engage the community about making alternative arrangements to get home after a night out.

Idea: We decided to use humour to disarm a naturally cynical audience and rather than pointing out the threat of RBT, we opted to promote the message that if a quick drink turns into a big night out, make sure you have an alternate means of getting home.  Creatively, we expressed this as making sure you have a ‘PLAN B’.

Results: The campaign enjoyed immense success. Initial testing showed 81% message recall, 82% believability among young males, and 76% of respondents agreed that drink driving is socially unacceptable. However most impressively, in the years after the campaign ran, the annual death toll dropped from an average of 80 drink driving related fatalities to below 40 and continues to drop.