Wild animals ‘unleashed’ in Melbourne streets.

A distinctive and imaginative road safety campaign, created by Swinburne University of Technology students as part of the Re:act behaviour change program, is appearing on oOh!media digital assets across Melbourne.

The ‘You miss a lot when you’re distracted’ campaign, which depicts vulnerable road users oblivious to the virtual presence of wild animals in the city, features on 162 digital assets across Melbourne, including landmark sites on Punt Road in St Kilda and the Princes Hwy in Geelong.

Melbourne is the third Australian city to launch a Re:act 2020 campaign. The Brisbane campaign was launched by Queensland Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey in mid-August, with the Sydney campaign launched two weeks later.

In an unprecedented event, Re:act media partner oOh!media has launched Re:act campaigns, which target the common road safety risk of distraction, across 663 unique sites through a partnership that exceeds $1.1 million in value, in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

The Re:act road safety campaigns have been created by communication design students at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and University of Technology Sydney and advertising students at Queensland University of Technology.

The prominent campaign executions are the result of a partnership between Re:act, a road safety initiative of creative behaviour change agency Hard Edge, and out of home advertising company oOh!media.

Swinburne University of Technology students Laura Hughes, Caitlin Xavier, Stephanie Powell and Thomas Pritchard worked with Hard Edge to bring the ‘You miss a lot when you’re distracted’ campaign to life, with oOh!media working directly with students to refine the campaign for digital distribution.

“The campaign featured inspired use of colour on wild animals and a correlating road safety danger, such as a car,” Hard Edge Managing Director Andrew Hardwick said. “It displayed incredible and insightful thinking to shift the audience’s focus to something that’s out of place and at the same time relate it to something that is present and should be the centre of attention.

“Re:act’s vision is to give young road users, who are over-represented in trauma statistics, a voice in road safety so they can influence their own age group. It’s so inspiring to see the amazing creativity this young group came up with.

“oOh!media’s enduring support for Re:act this year has been fantastic, in spite of the challenges ongoing restrictions have presented. They have been a wonderful contributor to the program and continue to enthusiastically support its objective of making our roads safer for all users.”

Noel Cook, oOh!media’s Chief Commercial & Operations Officer, said the company was proud to be supporting such an important campaign, as well as the students themselves.

“Road safety initiatives like these save lives, and we are utilising a wide range of valuable assets to take these messages to the public and spread the word to young drivers,” he said. “The students have displayed outstanding creativity in coming up with their campaigns, and our team has enjoyed working with them to develop their ideas and see them realised across prominent digital billboards and screens.

“This initiative and our ongoing support for Re:act is part of the our broader approach to road safety, working in conjunction with the Outdoor Media Association to invest in research and make Australian roads safer.”

Andrew Hardwick says the vision for Re:act is to bring young people together with government and industry to give them a real-world experience but also activate their road safety campaigns in public to change the behaviour of road users. The oOh!media partnership is enabling this vision to become a reality.

Hard Edge continues to grow the Re:act program and this is another step towards the national model of Re:act, where one selected student campaign will run nationally across Australia.

Students behind the selected campaigns in each city have also developed an online and social media presence to support the outdoor campaigns. To see more of the Melbourne campaign, visit missalot.com

Visit reactforchange.com to learn more about the Re:act program.

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For further information:

Andrew Hardwick
CEO – Hard Edge & Re:act
M +61 (0)417 334 399
ahardwick@hardedge.com.au

An initiative of Hard Edge, the annual Re:act program challenges university students to create a behaviour change campaign that raises awareness among 18-25 year old road users of a critical road safety issue where they are overrepresented. A panel of university, road safety and industry partners selects the most compelling road safety campaign in each state, which is then developed and launched on university campuses and oOh!media’s digital assets, including its landmark billboards. Now in its fifth year, Re:act ran in 2020 in Melbourne with Swinburne, UTS in Sydney and, for the first time, Brisbane, through QUT. The program also expanded internationally this year into London, at University of the Arts London. Further national and international expansion is planned for 2021.