BrewDog Hacked Waze to Warn People About Drink Driving
The traffic in Brazil is considered one of the most violent in the Americas, with Sao Paulo being the state with the highest number of road traffic deaths and drunk driving being the second largest cause of these deaths, according to recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO). During popular festivals, the numbers grow even higher. For example: according to a report from the Federal Highway Police, between 2018 and 2019 there was a spike in the number of drivers charged with drunk driving or who refused to do the breathalyser test during the Carnival.
Aware of its role in this scenario, BrewDog São Paulo, a brewery of Scottish origin, promoted the campaign ThrowBackCrash, developed by the ad agency Leo Burnett Tailor Made. So as to warn drivers who seem to ignore the facts and the risks of drunk driving, the action mapped 50 fatal crashes that occurred over previous years which were caused by alcohol consumption, and reported it as being a recent accident on Waze during the 15 days of revellers partying in the city of São Paulo.
"It’s not by mere chance that the regions with the greatest history of alcohol-related accidents are those that have the greatest flux of vehicles during the Carnival, because they’re areas with many bars and festivities. Our action was simply to simultaneously generate accident reports on Waze’s platform and, due to the atypical number of these reports, call users’ attention. Whenever a user clicked on a report, a specific communication occurred, with an image and news related to the accident that happened at that exact location, with the message 'Don’t let it to happen again. Don’t drink and drive. #TBC #Brewdog'. The idea was to first pique their curiosity and then raise awareness," explains Wilson Mateos, VP of Creation for Leo Burnett.
"We are passionate about two important things: people and beer. We hold socio-environmental responsibility as a pillar and we are aware of our responsibility in creating new societal practices. And drinking and driving is undoubtedly one of them. By using an app that people commonly use to avoid police roadblocks to send such an impacting message of social responsibility is a very innovative way to call the public’s attention," explains Érica Rocha, marketing manager of BrewDog São Paulo.
