GrowthOps rehashed the tagline with refreshed creative.
‘Still water can still be dangerous’ – that’s the message being pushed to the 2.7 million visitors to Seqwater’s recreation locations through a new summer safety campaign created by GrowthOps.
Designed to get even the most complacent boatie to take notice, the campaign takes simple reminders about important on-water safety behaviors and makes them memorable by replacing key words with images.
“Research tells us that experienced boaties tend to think safety messages don’t apply to them,” GrowthOps Brisbane creative director Lindsay Thompson says.
“We’ve stripped back the messages – to their simplest form – and taken away the power to argue. An action like ‘wear your lifejacket’ or ‘watch for submerged objects’ applies to everyone, without question.”
The campaign is running across South East Queensland throughout summer and autumn and is already having a direct impact on water users’ behaviour.
“Since the campaign’s launch we have seen a decrease in the number of safety incidents reported and infringement notices issued during the busy summer period," Seqwater senior communications advisor Chris Owen says.
"This indicates that the safety messages are resonating with our target audiences and in turn, influencing the desired changes in behaviour.”
The campaign’s effectiveness is noteworthy considering that 2019/2020 is the third year Seqwater has used the ‘Still water can still be dangerous’ tagline.
Owen credits the cumulative success of the refreshed creative to GrowthOps’ ability to build on learnings from previous years.
“We needed to be smart in our approach and the evolution of the messaging to hit ambitious behaviour change objectives this year,” Owen says.
“We engaged GrowthOps to conduct pre and post-campaign research to help us better understand water safety attitudes and behaviours, establishing message awareness benchmarks before and after the new campaign was in market.
“We have the longer-term aim of applying these insights to future campaigns to ensure that safety awareness continues to be top of mind for all South East Queenslanders visiting our water recreation sites in the years ahead.
“In fact, the early learnings we’ve gained from phase one are invaluable for the new safety messages we’ll develop in the future. We are really looking forward to seeing the results and insights from phase two of the research.”
Credits
Agency – GrowthOps
Creative Director: Lindsay Thompson
Head of Strategy and Innovation: Caroline Starecky
Senior Research Lead: James Taylor
Copywriters: Jessamy Ross and Heath Kunde
Art Directors: Simon Budzevski and Benjamin Drake
Graphic Artist: Gaelle Masurier
Director: Phil Hagstrom
Editor: Thomas Coade
Motion Graphics: Benjamin Drake
Music Composition and SFX: David Gaylard
Group Account Director: Mark Gregory
Client – Seqwater
Senior Communications Advisor: Chris Owen
