Enjoy the Ride – behavioural speed, a social marketing case study

A new direction in safe speed communications Observing trends in community attitudes, communications case studies, key learning’s from previous campaigns, research and surveying the media landscape, the Office of Road Safety has developed a new and exciting integrated communications strategy which tackles West Australians driving behaviours relating to travel speeds. The new anti-speeding communication is an innovative approach based on reward, individual motivations and community perceptions. It is not the typical ‘big stick’ approach. Community tracking research informs us that people are switching off to characteristic road safety messages. Recent testing results have revealed that there has been a decline in the extent to which road safety issues are rated as problematic and (more alarmingly) a decline in the salience of speeding in young males in both metro and regional areas. In addition to these community trends, research has identified significant changes in the marketplace, which has seen an increase in competing social issues, as well as shifting consumer habits. With advancements in technology and developing social marketing tools consumers are evolving making it increasingly difficult to reach our traditional audiences effectively. Throughout the development of this new campaign we have researched what the community think and tested our theories. Some key findings about previous speeding messages revealed an increasing gap between the public’s perception of speeding and what we have been telling them. This new approach to anti-speeding communications is a long term campaign that has been carefully considered under the Towards Zero strategy and the Safe System model. It is a holistic approach to behavioural change that essentially takes an idea which the WA community finds inherently true and applied it to a road safety message. It is a broader, more impactful communication strategy as it has direct relevance to a wide range of drivers across both demographic and psychographic segments. It not only relates to the lives of WA communities in general, but to their driving behaviour as well. This approach embraces the concept of ‘Slowing Down’, not just on the road, but in life itself.