Here’s your challenge: develop and produce an integrated traffic safety video marketing campaign aimed at changing a very dangerous habit. It’s not drugs or alcohol. It’s not unprotected sex or smoking. The issue at hand is the emerging trend of texting while driving. This growing concern is its own subcategory under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s distracted driving label. NHTSA’s distracted driving statistics indicate worrying behaviors from young millennials:
- Estimated 9% increase in injured people as a result of crashes involving a distracted driver from 2011 to 2012.
- 10% of all drivers under the age of 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported as distracted at the time of the crash. This age group has the largest proportion of drivers who were distracted.
- Drivers in their 20s make up 27% of the distracted drivers in fatal crashes.
- Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55mph, that’s enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded. (h/t VTTI)
- A quarter of teens respond to a text message once or more every time they drive. 20% of teens and 10% of parents admit that they have extended, multi-message text conversations while driving. (h/t UTMRI)
So, how do you go about it? Let’s take a look at two examples from Honda, the renowned car brand, and NHTSA, a government agency. These two organizations approach the subject matter in differing ways but some techniques overlap in the following public service announcements.
Sound Serves Story
Honda’s “On My Way” video features that type of whimsical, acoustic guitar-driven jingle tune that you often hear accompanying animated explainer videos. This selection establishes a lighthearted and pleasant rhythm to draw viewers into a comfortable space. By the way, yes, we’re fans of that choice. On the other hand, NHTSA’s “Manifesto Online” initially foregoes music and features the natural conversation of people in the car. It’s mundane; two friends are filling out a crossword. There isn’t any major expository reveals or character quirks. This selection lulls us into another comfortable space – how ordinarily identifiable these kids are.
However, both creative teams manipulate the soundtrack to drastically change the story. Around halfway into the animated video, we suddenly hear screeching brakes and honking horns. We hear glass shatter as the text message popups disintegrate on screen.
That comfortable world of text message flirting and “Hey There Delilah” guitar is gone. What is left is the sound of unanswered texts and a sinister reverberation usually reserved for tense thrillers and horror movies. Things can go badly in the blink of an eye.
There’s a ho-hum sense of quiet in NHTSA’s “Distraction” piece. The creative team jars you out of that false sense of security with a piercingly loud truck horn. We hear a violent crash: glass shattering, metal twisting, car flipping. A police siren serves as the backdrop for the rest of the video, including the final address. These soundtracks set the status quo and disrupt it when synchronized with heartstopping visuals.
The Language Your Audience Uses
“On My Way” portrays texticon (re: texting lexicon) effectively and believably without over-exaggeration (re: idk my bff, Jill?). The shorthand is essentially spot on: unintended capitalized letters, “u” for “you,” and emojis. Honda is clearly targeting millenial drivers with its wording:
NHTSA’s storytelling seems to be appealing towards a slightly broader audience base. This strategy recalls the statistic that “20% of teens and 10% of parents admit that they have extended, multi-message text conversations while driving.” The dialogue in “Manifesto Online” is pretty bland and lacks any generational references. There are no disembodied animated popups, the action takes place inside and outside the car. We can identify with real human beings getting hurt. This results in a more visceral reaction especially for parents of millenials and cohorts.
NHTSA has interestly included alternate versions of this video meant for another demographic: Spanish-speaking audiences. The same initial action occurs minus the brief dialogue about the crossword puzzle. Instead, a Hispanic police officer is substituted for the white officer at the end.
The agency has also uploaded an “alternative ending” to the original English-language video. Rather than conclude with the officer’s plea, the second version is much more minimalist with simple text on screen with the destroyed vehicle as background. In this way, campaign managers can split test efficacy and engagement with metrics like view duration, social shares, and audience retention based on the different versions of this video. This may impact their future narrative style later on in their ongoing “Distracted Driving” series.
Meta Data Optimization Strategies
Both videos titles are perfectly straightforward as to the content forthcoming. NHTSA names the subject at hand: texting while driving. Honda opts for the more branded route; the work’s actual title is followed by the company name and an official hashtag (#thumbsup).
Honda includes a call to action in its video description though the landing page is not hyperlinked (re: safety.honda.com). NHTSA’s description lacks a clear call to action. The wording reiterates the “U Drive. U Text. U Pay.” slogan but lies beneath YouTube’s extended fold (5 lines).
Tags represent another opportunity for enhanced optimization. Back in the good old days, some jokers keyword-stuffed tags to death with irrelevant crap in order to game YouTube’s ranking algorithms as best they could. Nowadays, that tactic is largely antiquated. Check out this sample tagging comparison between “On My Way” and “Manifesto Online” below:
Honda zeroes in on targeted keyword phrases rooted around “texting while driving,” “distracted driving,” and “driving safety.” Their strategy involves at least 14 tags. Not sure about the “how to get out of a traffic ticket” one but whatever. On the other hand, NHTSA’s perspective only applies eight tags. They have put their targeted keyword phrase “texting while driving” first followed by their organization’s name and some generic markers.
Remember, provide relevant terms to your video’s optimization with a mix of longtail and broad keyword phrases that apply to your content. You have 500 characters at your disposal.
What’s the Call to Action?
“Manifesto Online” wraps up its plot with a police officer lamenting the senseless loss of life. We read “U DRIVE. U TEXT. U PAY.” In tiny font in the bottom third, we see a link (non-annotated) for the distracted driving government website. The #justdrive branded hashtag is also included.
On the other hand, Honda’s video utilizes a more direct call to action (introduced seconds after the logo) in the bottom third. A clickable annotation is employed to an off-YouTube landing page. The branded hashtag #thumbsup is not carried over from the previous scene.
It’s not a matter of animation vs. live action or whimsy pop vs. silence. It’s not a matter of video duration, both works are quite short at 30 seconds (“Manifesto Online”) and 60 seconds (“On My Way”). These works exist in succession with other videos in each organization’s ongoing series. They complements and supplements to each other. That’s the power and beauty of video marketing campaigns such as these: working towards the same goal from different perspectives.
