Team
My team consisted of Jessica Ting, Elise Nichols, Nick Gardner, Nicholas Cho, Jake Hughes, and myself.
My Role
As Creative Lead, I brainstormed with my team and created rough designs in order to figure out the nuts and bolts of this campaign. In addition, I came up with the main idea for our promotional video. Furthermore, I was in charge of overseeing all designs for this campaign.
Design Challenge
As part of the Strategic Design and Innovation in Marketing Fellowship Program in the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, our fellowship was split into different teams. Each team became a fictional advertising agency. Throughout the semester, our fellowship was given two case competitions. Successful advertisers from Washington, D.C judged each competition. In addition, the first competition was on distracted driving. As an agency, my team and I created a marketing campaign to remind drivers to avoid their phones.
Target Market
Overall, we wanted the target audience of millennials to understand that the fear of missing out is not worth it. As our brand promise stated, “The future is in your hands”.
Design Solution
My team and I won the case competition for distracted driving. We created a campaign that would convince people to avoid texting and using their phones while driving. We chose the campaign name, “what about tmrw?” with the brand promise, “The future is in your hands”. Our campaign focused on video advertising, Waze advertising, privacy screen protectors, out-of-home advertising, radio advertising, social media marketing, and bumper stickers.
Design Theme
For the overall look of this campaign, we wanted to put the audience in the driver’s seat, while indicating that an accident could happen to them. For each design in our campaign, we had a specific character. The characters were Vedo, Michael, Sarah, Ayla, and Maya. Vedo’s first day of school, Michael and Sarah’s wedding, Ayla’s baby shower, and Maya’s graduation were all tomorrow. Unfortunately, all these people missed these essential life events because you, today’s drivers, were distracted on your phone while driving. Furthermore, the audience comprehended the story of each character because of the design on the iPhone, similar to Google Calendars. Overall, we wanted the target audience of millennials to understand that the fear of missing out is not worth it. As our brand promise stated, “The future is in your hands”.
Video Advertising
For video advertising, we created a promotional video that would, in theory, go viral. I came up with the main idea and a rough storyboard of this video. I wanted this video to be relatable and heart warming. It showed two people falling in love with each other. After the audience fell in love with these characters and their relationship, a tragedy happened. On the night the man was going to propose, the woman died from a car accident while driving and FaceTiming him. This ending left an emotional impact on the audience. This video received more than 20,000 views on Facebook.
Radio Advertising
This radio advertisement starts with the familiar iPhone text message alert sound. This sound grabs the drivers’ attention, while enticing them to listen to the radio advertisement. This advertisement reminds drivers to avoid their phones. Please listen to the radio advertisement below.
Waze Advertising
The advertisements on Waze, similar to Google Maps, only appear when the car is immobile.
Truck Wrapping
In addition, truck wrappings gave us a huge opportunity to advertise because of the tremendous exposure on roads.
Billboards
Our campaign focused on billboards, near major highways, for consistent, public reminders. We also took advantage of city signs. We had our campaign designs near streetlights at intersections. When possible, we tried to have city signs next to each other. This created a greater impact on the audience.
Privacy Screen Protectors
We chose privacy screen protectors because research indicated that people look at their phone at an angle while driving. When the driver’s phone is at an angle, with the privacy screen protector, the driver will only see the words, “what about tmrw?”.
