BITE Insight

Sometimes you don’t need to be shocked into feeling something or paying attention. Sometimes you just need a bit of humour to point out the absurdity in a particularly dark moment.

This is the thinking behind the new ad from the Department of Transport’s THINK! initiative and Y&R London, A Mate doesn’t Let a Mate Drink Drive. The work portrays your average Friday night in the pub, a few mates sat around a table. But then the car keys land next to the pint glass, heads turn and the two non-drivers share a conspiratorial look.

There is no horrifying moment but rather a minute of dark comedy as the driver’s two mates, joined in by a chorus of pub goers, serenade him. With pint replacing pottery wheel, the reluctant driver and his friend recreate the infamous Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore Ghost scene in the middle of the raucous pub.

The campaign’s aim is to appeal to younger drivers who may have recently earned  their licence and found themselves in the pub with their mates. THINK! wants to remind people that it is everyone’s responsibility to protect one another.

Y&R London’s strategy looks away from the message of it could happen to you and towards the reality of peer to peer influence. If your mates are telling you to do something, chances are you’ll listen.