Our updated initiative for the Alabama Department of Transportation, “Code of the Road,” invites drivers ages 18-34 to embrace safer habits behind the wheel. Unlike typical campaigns, it partners with drivers, emphasizing education over showcasing accidents. Tested through focus groups and surveys, its tailored messaging resonates with the younger audience, encouraging responsible driving.
There’s a Code of the Road, and knowing it helps you follow it.
The Alabama Department of Transportation, through its Drive Safe Alabama initiative, educates drivers about safe behavior when behind the wheel. For our campaign titled “Code of the Road,” the approach isn’t about showing horrible outcomes of bad driving behavior but suggesting a partnership with drivers to help them understand some rules of the road that will keep everyone safe. There are more than 40,000 vehicle crashes each year on Alabama roads, and most of those crashes are preventable just by following the “Code of the Road.” We’re inviting people to learn the codes of the road and stick to them for everyone’s safety.
Target Audience
The campaign is targeting Alabama drivers ages 18-34. Focus groups and online digital surveys were employed to test the campaign messaging that resonated best with our younger target audience.
Objectives
- Create clever messaging that breaks through for our 18-34 age audience.
- Focus on safe driving initiatives that include distracted driving, speeding, drunk driving, and seat belts.
- Introduce to Alabama a “Driving While High” initiative due to the increased frequency of marijuana use while driving. Man-on-the-street videos were created to educate our target audiences about the dangers of driving while high.
View other videos in the playlist in order, or select the dropdown menu at the top right of the video screen to choose a specific video.
Delivery
- A series of 15-second videos and display messages are delivered digitally through CTV/OTT, pre-roll, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, streaming audio, and in-game. We layered in Super Premium CTV, College Football CTV, YouTube TV, & Amazon Prime Video. Impressions were up 26.2%.
- Statewide billboards deliver messages to drivers when they may actually be breaking the rules of safe driving. Monthly traffic count is over 42,236,200 vehicles.
- Campaign social platform cover graphics and branded posts on Facebook, Instagram, and X, in addition to videos on Facebook and Instagram, are designed to increase followers. Engagements grew 147% and link clicks grew 459%.
- Network TV for 5 major markets ran on CBS, ABC, FOX, and statewide on Telemundo, with additional pushes ahead of major holidays and football season. 1,246 total spots ran.
- The new DriveSafeAlabama.org website launched with a 120% increase in pageviews and 73% increase in users.
Cross-device display and interstitial banner ads target teen drivers and college students.
Out-of-Home delivered a mix of several messages addressing common dangerous driving behaviors.
Social Paid and Organic Media used humor to point out the absurdity of making dangerous choices.
College football sponsorships provide unmatched access to highly engaged audiences, with over half of Americans tuning into college sports and strong growth among key 18–49 demographics.
In the first six weeks of running the updated campaign, there were 3.21 million total impressions. Reddit had just under 263k impressions with a .70% click-through rate (CTR), and the mobile interstitial ads had 189k impressions with 2.26% CTR!
(The industry average display ad CTR hovers at around 0.1%. –Bannerflow.com)
Services
- Behavioral Targeting
- Brand Awareness & Strategy
- Branding
- Campaign Development & Management
- Copywriting
- Digital Strategy & Marketing
- Art Direction & Graphic Design
- Media Planning & Management
- Research Interpretation
- Social Media Management & Listening
- Videography
Stickers with fun messaging are given to teens at Drive Safe events.
“The traffic safety media campaigns and videos look wonderful. They are very engaging and interactive.”
— Amanda Jackson, Regional Program Manager for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration