DfT / Think!

The brief

The UK penalty for driving using a hand held mobile phone recently increased to a £200 fine and six penalty points. Our brief was to reach young men aged 17-24 and let them know the law…

Background info

• Drivers using a mobile phone are 4 times more likely to crash, injuring or killing themselves and other people.
• Our young male audience listen to a lot of streaming music on their smartphones.
• They don’t typically pay for an ad-free service, instead listening to Spotify’s free tier and apps for stations like Kiss and Radio X.

The solution

To cut through the wallpaper of the usual ads, we created Euphoria FM, a local pirate station which crudely crashes in on top of a typical ad.

1

Writing

The pirate broadcast is personalised to suit the user, so they’ll hear the MC shout out their area, mention the day / time of day, comment on the weather they’re experiencing, and call out the device they’re listening on.

2

Recording

Our MC was voiced by Allan Mustafa, a BAFTA nominated actor / writer known for co-creating, writing and starring in “People Just Do Nothing” a BBC mockumentary about West London pirate radio station Kurupt FM. Allan gamely read out every possible permutation of the script including over 200 UK towns and cities.

The station’s flavour of grimey dance music was made in-house by creative and co-writer George Robb.

3

Serving

We launched the campaign through A Million Ads, and at the time of writing we've served over 1.7 million personalised pirate radio broadcasts.

Credits

Client

Department for Transport / Think!

Agency

VMLY&R London

Creative Director

Phil Clandillon

Creatives

George Robb & Phil Clandillon

Producer

Elena Di Maria

Voice Over

Alan Mustafa

Recording

Wave Studios