Diageo promotes road safety with #DriveResponsibly

Armed with a microsite and quirky creatives, #DriveResponsibly seems to be Diageo's attempt to save lives by educating citizens.

Diageo, in association with Network 18, initiated a road safety campaign. On social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the alcohol beverage brand has been pushing minimalistic, vibrant and quirky creatives, cartoons and awareness videos that nudges people to #DriveResponsibly.

The initiative highlights critical issues related to road safety practices — drunk driving, use of helmet and seatbelt, overspeeding, use of mobile phones while driving, obeying traffic rules and signals, lethargy while driving and respecting pedestrians.

Use of hashtags

Though the overlying hashtag for the campaign is #DriveResponsibly, several generic hashtags have also been included to extend the impact of the efforts. These include #NeverDrinkAndDrive, #AlwaysWearHelmet, #DoNotOverspeed, #FollowTrafficRules #DoNotTextAndDrive, #DoNotDrowseWhileDriving, #RespectPedestrian and #RoadSafety.

Police appreciation

With #ThankYouPolice, Diageo raised awareness about how the police officials on the road are heroes without capes. Here, they gave people an avenue to share stories of instances where police personnel had come to their rescue. These stories of gratitude were able to strike a chord across social media platforms.

Amp up the quirk

The content put across by Diageo included memes, quizzes and short videos that promote safe driving. These have been posted on all their social media handles. The quizzes conducted by Diageo helped get good interactions as well as increase the reach of the content.

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Memes, as well as creative, quirky doodles, seemed to work much better at putting across the point than dramatic captions. There was an appeal to these — serious messages being put across in fun ways.

One of the most interesting themes used by them in this regard is the #BollywoodGoneWrong series. Here, they took famous scenes from various Bollywood movies where traffic rules were being violated blatantly. With a quirky touch, these were shared on social media pages to put across a message that this is wrong and people shouldn't do it.

Work with authorities

Getting a publication to support the campaign helped the brand create relevant content featuring educators, government and law enforcement officials. Though the microsite was created in collaboration with Firstpost, these editorial pieces were shared by Network18 on social media, in multiple languages, thus increasing reach.

Almost all the social media presence and engagement for the campaign came with a CTA of getting people to pledge on the Firstpost microsite. The site displays the number of pledges taken and lists feature articles related to road safety as well as news related to road safety. It also has a section to showcase and document the doodles that were shared on social media.

This piece is authored by Kshamata Chavan, a student at the University of Mumbai. She can be reached at kshamata.chavan07@gmail.com.