Street Cred Media drives home the message of road safety
Consumers are bombarded with thousands of messages every day. In order to enable the message of road safety to stand out in this media clutter, Street Cred Media, the outdoor advertising media specialists, have partnered with the Gauteng Department of Community Safety, adding a new dimension to the Department's educational drive to reduce the carnage on the province's roads.
ALBERTON – This has resulted in the introduction of a form of shock therapy by placing 25 wrecked vehicles in strategic positions throughout Gauteng as a means of educating people about the importance of obeying the rules of the road.
“As a way of capturing the public’s attention, the Gauteng Department of Community Safety, has embarked on a campaign of shock advertising until the end of April 2015 to heighten awareness of the consequences of negligent driving, placing the wreckages at hazardous locations such as Golden Highway, Moloto Road and major arterioles such as the R59, N12, N3 and N14, known for their dangerous and often fatal accidents,” says Garth Maluleke, MD of Street Cred Media, one of Africa’s leading mobile media outdoor advertising companies, specialising in creating awareness around messages and products through vehicle and truck branding in particular.
The Gauteng Department of Community Safety, which is responsible for both traffic law enforcement and providing information on road safety, targets road users ranging from drivers, passengers, pedestrians and cyclists to educate them about the safe usage of public roads. However, despite these efforts from the Department, there are still a large number of fatal accidents on the roads.
“Our aim is to combine law enforcement with education, using these wrecks to both appeal to the moral consciousness of each road user and to challenge each of them as to whether or not they want to contribute to the statistics of fatal wreckages. In this way we are using outdoor shock advertising with an edge as part of our road safety endeavours.”
Part of this initiative is using the visual impact of wrecked vehicles with road safety messages at strategic sites across the province, making road users face the harsh reality about the dangers of irresponsible behaviour.
Each car wreckage is branded with a warning message to motorists such as: “Most of these fatal crashes were due to the abuse of alcohol.” This aims to create an emotional association of fear and horror by exploiting the shock value of witnessing an actual vehicle wreckage which has resulted in at least one fatality.
“At the end of the day, we aim to create awareness and in doing so, we hope to lessen the toll of accidents and play a role in saving lives in the process,” concludes Maluleke.
