Bad road safety ads increase risky driving.
You might have already noticed that road safety campaigns mainly suggest danger and death. The logical point of view would be that evoking risks and mortality would inhibit dangerous behaviors on the road. Unfortunately, recent studies proved that the total opposite can also happen. Human psychology is much more complex than we would think. I suggest that we review together how people behavior actually works so you don’t screw up your next road safety campaign by inducing more accidents than it is supposed to solve. Here are the different steps we will go through:
- A brief history of road safety communication campaigns.
- Are road safety communication campaigns efficient ?
- Why do road safety communication campaign fail ?
- Any strategy to prevent the campaign to fail ?
1.
A brief history of road safety communication campaigns.
First things first, let’s review what have been done recently in this domain. Even-though road safety institutions are good clients of PR and advertising agencies, strategies used to communicate on the subject are more or less similar. However the creative execution of those very strategies never ceases to renew itself.
- The french tv ad “la vie est trop douce pour griller un stop” (see) by DDB Paris.
- The french tv ad “perte d’adhérence” (see) by the agency La Chose.
Those two campaigns portray very different approaches on how to suggest the risk in road safety. The DDB campaign is more optimistic and reward centered, while the La Chose campaign is more oriented toward punishments and regrets. Nonetheless, they both suggest (more or less obviously) the link between road safety and death avoidance. In a more scientific way to express that phenomenon, we will say that death is made “salient“. When scholars speak about death salience they designate how good a stimuli is at making the idea of death to appear in our mind (more or less consciously).
Another communication campaign is the following one from MullenLowe. Once again, death is made salient thanks to its brilliant copy writing. Death salience is everywhere, you can fin dit in Serviceplan TV campaigns and OLV campaigns (see), in DDB campaigns (see), BBDO campaigns (see) independent agencies like lg2 (see) Mortierbrigade which was recently promoted to Cannes Lions for this one (see).
As road safety isn’t a matter of commercial competition, it is not a problem if strategies from different agencies are quite similar (even though this similarity might also be caused by clients being afraid of being “too” original). But what is the actual behavioral feedback of such an approach? Did strategists admitted to soon that the death salience strategy was the most efficient one ? This question requires a deepen analysis.
2.
Are road safety communication campaigns efficient ?
The answer is quite surprising. Since 1999, psychologists have proved that death salience in communication campaigns can foster deadly driving behaviors in the audience [1], [2], [3]. You red it right : advertising and PR campaigns warning people about deadly behaviors trigger a psychological mechanism that enhance people chances to engage themselves in those deadly driving behaviors.
There is a theory that explains this phenomenon and it is named the terror management theory. Here are the basics of it: unlike some other animals, human beings know that their lives are ephemeral and that one day we will all vanish into nothingness. When death is made salient, this triggers our brain to engage itself in behaviors that make him feel like it is eternal or like his life has a meaning [4], [5], [6]. This reaction is a defense mechanism meant to reduce the anxiety induced by death salience. This phenomenon can be provoked, among other things, by communication campaign about road safety suggesting the idea of death more or less obviously. Now, you might ask yourself “I don’t see how risky driving could make my brain feel like it is more eternal or it has a meaning to his life”. Let see that together
By the way, here is a brilliant printf rom Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok.
3.
Why do road safety communication campaign fail ?
According to the terror management theory, death salience triggers a reaction (explained before) that can be divided in two types :
- Short term proximal defenses designate a defense mechanism under which a brain exposed to death salience will simply deny the legitimacy of the communication suggesting death (for exemple: “this only happens to others”, “yes, but I have the situation under control”, “I was doing this since I was 20, I won’t die from it today”, etc…) [5] .
- Long term distal defenses can itself be differentiated into two types.
- In its first type, the brain will try to construct and maintain a complex belief system that gives a meaning, a value and a signification to its life and to the world. This system of belief allows the individual to hope for a supernatural immortality (sustained thanks to spiritual beliefs) or a natural immortality (sustained through an ambition of personal accomplishment in order to let some kind of lasting posterity to the world and live forever through other people’s memory). However, we are more interested into the second kind of long term distal defenses.
- The second type of response make the brain trying to over-perform in self-esteem buffering behaviors. Especially to overdo behaviors that are perceived as socially desirable or culturally attractive [5], [6], [7], [8] .
Now you may start to understand how death salience can enhance risky behaviors on the road. Sometimes, self buffering behaviors are risky or even deadly behaviors themselves. For some people risky driving is considered as a behavior which demonstrate bravery or self confidence (those values are socially well perceived). When exposed to the idea of death, a driver may engage himself in over-performing self-buffering behaviors, which in that case is the precise behavior we initially wanted to prevent. Therefore, a road safety communication campaign failing in that way happens in 4 steps :
- A road safety ad made death salient.
- Death salience triggers a defense psychological mechanism against anxiety (in that case a need to overperfom in socially desirable stereotypes).
- A risky driving behavior is identified by the brain as a self-esteem buffering behavior.
- The individual engage himself in a risky driving behavior.
4.
Any strategy to prevent the campaign to fail ?
Everything isn’t lost, there are some ways to bypass more or less this effect. Remember that the terror management theory only applies under conditions of death salience. Therefore, if your radio spot, print, … must reinforce the idea that driving fast might kill, just make sure that the audience isn’t exposed to the message while they are driving and prioritize touch points that aren’t on the road (not very instinctive, I know). TV spot and OLV might be another interesting touch point to limit the effect of the terror management theory on the road. However this doesn’t solve the main problem why this psychological effect occurs.
A meta-analysis reveals that for people who do not consider fast driving as a self-esteem buffering behavior, the terror management theory has few effects on driving behaviors [3]. Therefore, using death salience in communication strategies requires first a campaign to break the cognitive link between “fast driving” and “self-esteem” in the head of the audience. To put it another way, a road safety communication strategy using death salience must happen in to steps. First : a campaign to make people understand that fast driving isn’t a proof of self-confidence, and second : the actual campaign using the argument of death. Once the first step is done, you actually can plan some touch points in a road context.
Finlay, one last strategy to avoid that effect is simply not to use the idea of death and focusing on the advantages of driving safe rather than the dangers of driving risky.
Source
[1] Ben-Ari, O. T., Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (1999). The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: A test of terror management mechanisms. Journal of personality and social psychology, 76(1), 35.
[2] Ben-Ari, O. T., Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (2000). Does a threat appeal moderate reckless driving? A terror management theory perspective. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 32(1), 1-10.
[3] Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two decades of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2), 155-195.
[4] Shehryar, O., & Hunt, D. M. (2005). A terror management perspective on the persuasiveness of fear appeals. Journal of consumer psychology, 15(4), 275-287.
[5] Goldenberg, J. L., & Arndt, J. (2008). The implications of death for health: a terror management health model for behavioral health promotion. Psychological review, 115(4), 1032.
[6] Routledge, C., & Vess, M. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook of terror management theory. Academic Press.
[7] Arndt, J., Solomon, S., Kasser, T., & Sheldon, K. M. (2004). The urge to splurge: A terror management account of materialism and consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 14(3), 198-212.
[8] Solomon, S., & Arndt, J. (1993). Cash is king: The effect of mortality salience on the appeal of money. Unpublished data, Skidmore College.
victor@strategicplanner.be
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.