Hi all

I don't think I've ever mentioned, but I'm a road safety communications manager with a road safety partnership here in the UK.
I'm mostly a marketing communications type, and this role is one that really allows me to flex various muscles...

On those lines, we've just released a brand new campaign which is gaining loads of attention around the world (lots of hits from the US, but only a couple from Canada so far... Hint hint...).

We've spent the last year working on it, and I'm trying to get onto TV here in the UK!!

I'm personally and professionally really proud of this - we've managed to achieve something quite different to normal road safety advertising; it's family friendly, there's no blood/guts etc... Plus I've made policemen cry with it!

I'd be really grateful if you could have a look and let me know your thoughts: http://www.embracethis.co.uk.

If you like it, please pass it on and around - I'm determined to get 1million+ hits!

Thank you in advance

IainK has said it's OK to post this in here because, although it's work related, it's not trying to sell you anything...
I am hoping to move to Canada in a couple of years when I've got finances sorted etc - so I'm not just a random lurker!

Anything that makes policemen cry gets my seal of approval

I got nothing but a black page

Its a Quicktime thingy, maybe needs an update or something?

Loved it! Will put it on my facebook status and email it to friends and family

Very pretty and artistic although I'd be curious as to how effective it would be.

Indeed. The ad's pretty enough, but the technology is a bit fragile... borked i.e. 8 here and had to restart the browser before quicktime cottoned on [not my choice of browser: corporate PC, before any Firefox devotees have a go]. Also, my corporate connection doesn't like auto-redirect scripts, so the linky thing at the end where it dumps you onto the sussex safer roads site caused a bit of a problem.

I like it and found it very artistic and "pretty" but dead simple.

No doubt though, the painstaking hours it took to produce, you will say the background story and production was anything but dead simple.

(I had no issues with viewing, loading, etc)

(And I didn't cry )

Nice work

Logistics worked fine for me, & I (not having read your post properly) was not really sure what I was watching at first - even when they held him back was only towards the end when the penny dropped.

Very different to the pizza one I remember & would be interested to see if the less unpleasant, more subtle approach is more effective if nothing because it is different to the grusome approach we are used to.

I think it's very good. Starts you off wondering what's going on, but gently puts across a serious message.
Another impactive way would be to do something similar, but maybe with a child? As a Police Officer, one of the things that really does wind me up are adults who don't strap in their own kids
It didn't make me cry, though I will post it on FB.

I preferred Jimmy Saville.

On home computer it worked fine. Very good

...Jimmy didn't do subtlety and sophistication!

Slick visuals - nice family (cliched Matrix slo-mo?).

Being a gen-Xer, having survived the (potential commie-induced cannibal nuclear) holocaust of the 1980's, I'd say that I feel safe in my 5-point harnessed, x8 airbagged, roll caged, On-Star/GPS, nylon studded snow tyred behemoth of a sunblocking SUV vehicle. What really affected me in that ad was all that basterd plastic glitter scattered over the wife's new achromic wall-to-wall shag pile!

Would our current Blu-Ray/MP3/Texting/Twittering/Blogging/pR0nnig/ripping/Callofduty4/net slang/DVD Extras/Podcast/WalMart slurping generation empathise and acknowledge such an advert? How long would it take before a YouTube parody appeared? “The average American is exposed to about 3000 advertising messages a day, and globally corporations spend over $620 billion each year to make their products seem desirable and to get us to buy them" (Michael Brower, PhD, and Warren Leon, PhD - Union of Concerned Scientists Website) http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/guide.ch1.html

Safety ads? Old school - Snap!

I find these ads have greater resonance . . .

Well, without wanting to prick Mr. Apache's professional pride, I rather wondered as to whether if the guy with no shoes on had been paying more attention to the coffee table, rather than to his stereotypical family, it wouldn't have exploded like that?