When General Motors created the safety brand Periscope to change the way the world thinks about vehicle safety and focus on achieving their vision of a world with zero crashes - we knew we needed a creative solution that broke through. Safety is a table stakes conversation in the automotive industry and the norm is to focus on features and packages. We're changing the narrative by looking at safety from a new perspective: the human perspective. We did this by playing the role of researcher to creatively help more than 9 billion people change their driving behavior.
After learning that 94% of crashes are due to human error we developed a hypothesis, that mental health and stress were aggravators for distracted driving. However, there was no research to support this hypothesis, so we commissioned proprietary research focused on The Future of Safety to study environmental, vehicle and driver safety.
Results proved that mental health and stress, especially in a “post-covid” world where 40% of drivers feel more anxious now than before the pandemic, were a large factor in distracted driving that causes crashes. In fact, driving while stressed is riskier than texting and driving.
To bring this insight to life our brief was a big one: Challenge the world to reduce stress before driving
Business Objectives included:
· Drive awareness of stress as a “new” protagonist in the Distracted Driving conversation
· Rally people to take action to mitigate stress in the vehicle (engagement)
To shine a light on this new phenomenon, we decided to bring our safety message to an unexpected channel, one known for glorifying risky driving behavior: TikTok. Not only is TikTok the fastest growing platform among teens, our most vulnerable drivers on the road, but our research found that 2/3 of American drivers who have consumed driving hacks, stunts or challenges on social media have copied or considered copying the behavior they viewed. And on top of that, 54% of these videos are negative stunts. Our approach flips that dynamic on its head and gives TikTok users something positive/safe to emulate.
Leveraging Distracted Driving Month, when every other automotive company would be talking about cell phone distraction, we spoke directly to young drivers about the effects of mental health on their driving abilities.
From professional athletes to close friends and family, people all over the world were having an open discussion about the effects of mental health and stress. Recognizing that for the first time in history, mental and emotional health have entered our collective cultural psyche, we knew it was the right time to educate the world about the risk of driving while stressed.
But how do we get our message across to the masses? Our approach for making an impact was three-fold:
Gain Cultural Currency: Lean into an existing cultural trend to get our message out there.
Appeal to tribal associations: Rally people around a common mission: reduce stress behind the wheel
Provoke Action: Challenge people to change their behavior.
Understanding at a human level that life’s distractions are all interwoven, and that there is no one size fits all way to unpack them, we realized we didn’t need a reminder or tool to reduce distraction behind the wheel, we needed an outlet.
#ScreamItOut Challenge
We leveraged four established TikTok influencers to spark awareness and attention about mental health as a distraction by challenging them to” scream it out” before hitting the road.
Why screaming? It is a scientifically proven way to reduce stress. And is a simple, powerful and cathartic way get people’s attention about the problem of distracted driving. Plus, everybody is doing it. Following the pandemic, we saw Moms across the country gather in fields to scream out their built-up stress.
The ask was simple. Duet the TikTok video of our lead influencer, @angryreactions and #screamitout to reduce stress before you drive.
We created a movement:
In just two weeks our GM branded hashtag and related content gained over 9 Billion views...and counting.
2.2 Million additional TikTok creators posted unique content leveraging our hashtag further driving awareness and acknowledging the reality and dangers of driving while stressed.
We also saw over 1.1 billion “loves”, “shares” and “comments” in support of our message.
SOURCES:
Future of Safety Study, Truth Central, 2021
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812115
*Source: VTTI Naturalistic driving study, texting and driving is 6.2 more risky than model, undistracted driving. However, driving with high stress is significantly 9.8 more risky than model, undistracted driving.
https://www.popsci.com/story/science/screaming-frustration-anger-tension-feelings-calm/