Ad Council & NHTSA - Never Happens
The Situation
Every year, several children die from being left behind in hot cars. This situation is completely avoidable, so Ad Council, NHTSA & Chemistry teamed up to make a campaign that would make people see the
There are three main ways that children die from hot car deaths:
They are forgotten: Parents lose track of the fact that their child is in the car with them, and they leave them behind once they exit.
They get in on their own: Kids play with toy cars all day, and they don’t necessarily realize that real cars can be real dangerous. They enter a car, but they don’t come out.
They are left behind intentionally: Because parents are trying to do it all, sometimes it seems okay to just leave the child behind for just one minute. But it’s not.
The problem
Parents and caregivers love the children in their care so much that they cannot fathom harming them by leaving them behind in a car. It’s not something they’re willing to hear that they may be susceptible to either.
The insight
We realized we needed to get parents to understand that just because it would never doesn’t mean it could never happen to them.
On top of this insight, we needed to have an approachable tone that would engage parents and then hit them with the facts.
The Solution
“Never Happens” shows relatable, real-world scenarios of things that parents said they would never do, but end up doing. Think: “I’ll never make a separate dinner.” Yeah, right.
It gets parents to see themselves in the forefront of the message before telling them that hot car deaths can also happen to them.
The Results
We moved the needle in issue awareness, the primary goal, by 6 percent, with an increase in ad recognition from previous campaigns by 6 points. Additionally, we shifted attitudes and behaviors of respondents, which further solidified the success of our campaign.
Increased recognition of heatstroke risks: +11 pts agree they hear more about heatstroke/children dying in hot cars than before.
Heightened concern: +5 pts acknowledge heatstroke is on parents’ and caregivers’ minds.
Behavioral intent: 45% feel the need to change behavior to prevent heatstroke deaths, compared to 22% among those unaware.
Consistent preventative actions were significantly higher among PSA-aware individuals.
Information seeking: 46% of those who watched the PSAs searched for more information, versus only 15% among those unaware.
These results were exactly what the clients were looking for, and we are excited to announce a second phase of this campaign planned for next year. Stay tuned for more.