Don’t Tap and Drive: GTB Rome and Ford Italia on Safe Smartphone Use Whilst Driving

GTB Rome, the WPP agency fully dedicated to the Ford Italia client, has for years extensively worked to communicate the principles of responsible driving. This process started in 2015, particularly covering the subject of the dangers of using a smartphone while driving.

3 out of 4 car accidents in Italy are caused by the use of an electronic device while driving. Young drivers between 18 and 29 years old are the most vulnerable victims of this misdemeanour.This easily explains why this demographic have became the main target of responsible driving campaigns.

Yet, it is very difficult to communicate this message to such a young target market. And it is especially difficult to convince them to leave their smartphone alone. This is why Ford of Italy and GTB Rome have concentrated their efforts on a campaign that mainly works on social networks.

After ‘Don’t Scroll and Drive’ and ‘Don’t Emoji and Drive’, this year GTB launches, on Instagram, ‘Don’t Tap and Drive’. This campaign refers to the single gesture that millions of people do every day: tapping on the touch screen.The on air campaign includes the publishing of three pictures of a zebra

crossing on the road.

Tapping on the picture results into the appearing of a few tags, all together shaped up into the silhouettes of a dog, a runner, a pram. The message is clear: driving without paying full attention to the road can lead to serious consequences, as missing people crossing the road, for example.The campaign is fully optimized for IOs.

Each tag links back to the Instagram profiles of a selection of web influencers who chose to be part of the campaign. They all will publish their own selfie holding a tag-resembling cardboard, with their names on it. And each will explain, in the caption, the importance of driving responsibly.

‘Young people hardly ever listen to institutional messages – says Federico Russo, Executive Creative Director at GTB Rome -  and they would rather pay attention to what comes in the shape of a friendly message from a social contact they trust. This is why we chose to launch a campaign that leverages on a solid network of web influencers who, informally, can get in real contact with our target, thus communicating further the real danger of driving distractedly.

The influencers network selection is the result of a cooperation GTB Roma – Burson-Marsteller, PR agency of the WPP Group.Campaign photographs by Lorenzo Poli.