Drink driving ads have always freaked me out. Some of them have been terrible, and some have been based around pretty cool ideas (like the “mate-mate-mate-Dave” one). But Waka Kotohi, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) recently released a new drink driving ad that lots of people are talking about.
The ad features a Maori teenager (who shall be known as “Legend”) at a party where he can see that his sober driver mate (George) is really “wasted” and not fit to drive them home.
The ad follows the guy’s internal moral debate as he tries to decide what to do. He doesn’t want to look “dumb”, but he thinks about what would happen if his friend was killed. He imagines that he’d have to move in with George’s lame family, and that Ghost George would haunt him for the rest of his life, tempting him with delicious ghost takeaways.
Ghost George: Wanna chip?
Legend: You know I can’t grab your ghost chips.
The ad is pretty slick and looks more like a (really) short film than an ad by the NZTA. Which I’m sure is what they were going for. The lighting, cuts, use of slow motion, music and humour – it’s just really cool. It’s probably the first drink driving ad in the world by a government agency that’s really hip.
I love lots of things about this ad: the spotlight on Legend to show his separation and internal conflict at the party, everyone’s sweet accents, dead George’s brother’s hair, the awesome editing of the clip, but my favourite thing is in the party scenes near the end when one of the chicks does a wicked slo-mo party pukana.
According to the NZTA website, over 40% of all drink-driving crashes involve drunk drivers under the age of 24 years and in 2008-2010 38% of the drunk drivers under the age of 24 were Maori. So I guess an ad featuring Maori young people makes sense. Pity it came too late for the ad awards. Legend.
Watch the ad on the NZTA website.
Heh, I’d heard about that ad, but not seen it. It is hip! I do love the accents!
In fact. I watched it twice.
Do you remeber those ads they had with the people playing games to see who would sober drive. Those were neat and fun as well. They showed a good way to not even have to deal with a drunk driver.
They were cute
I do remember those! And they were. So drink-drive ads are getting cooler – I wonder what will be next?? How much cooler can they get? Or do they reset to zero now? Back to shock tactics. Like that new ad about pedestrian safety I saw on the news today which uses actual footage of a car slamming into a young lady on a crossing and sending her rag-dolling through the air out-of-frame. That’s not cool! But they did interview the girl, who survived with bruises and scratches. Which IS cool. Yay for her!