The Department for Transport has launched a new festive campaign for THINK! to aim to help stop drink-driving ahead of the holiday season. 

The campaign, ‘Mates for Life’ has been created by brand and customer experience agency VMLY&R and extends from the highly impactful Pint Block campaign which showed the humorous and surprising ways young people can intervene and stop drink-driving. The new campaign evolves this even further to demonstrate why it’s so important to step in.

Not only is the Christmas and New Year period is one of the most dangerous times of year for drink-driving collisions but risk perception of drink-driving has also dropped by over 10% for 17-24-year-old male drivers compared to last year. 

The film highlights the moment in which a friend intervenes to stop their mate from drink-driving and then recounts the amazing adventures that they have yet to experience together. 

The story gets increasingly surreal as the friends lose themselves in imagining an epic adventure involving finding lost gold, starting a chippy empire, being kidnapped by the angry ‘Chip Mafia’ and getting raised by wolves on their way to being old men together. Concluding that the pair are mates for life.

The film aims to highlight the endless opportunities a life-long friendship can bring which is something not worth losing to drink-driving. The campaign aims to use laughter, positivity, and friendship to better connect with the young men who are most at risk when it comes to drink-driving.

“Pint blocking your mate and stopping them from driving drunk unlocks a lifetime of adventures for you to have together. We wanted to celebrate one of these adventures in a way that would cut through to a notoriously hard-to-reach audience,” said Tamryn Kerr, Creative Director at VMLY&R.

The campaign is the first since VMLY&R retained the government account earlier this year and further builds on THINK’s award-winning Mates Matter strategic platform, which has seen the most significant shift in young men’s attitudes towards drink-driving in over a decade. ‘Mates for Life’ launches as an online film and will run across social, with media planning and buying from OmniGov and Wavemaker.