Governments often use mass advertising to educate and shape social behavior. The results are often mixed and we all understand it is not easy to have a change in human (public) behavior. Upgrading faster police cars is definitely not the solution. Here's an innovative idea from a Latvia agency. A local ad agency MOOZ! (Riga, Latvia) was tasked to develop a campaign against speeding and aggressive driving with the goal to in reduce the number of car accidents and casualties. Target audience were those who consider the speeding part of their lifestyles and polices have a hard time chasing them down.
The agency came up with the idea of Organ Donors Certificate as a part of the ad campaign. Agency beleived that the reason for speeding is very social, fast driving is considered to be cool among large groups of the society particularly male age 20-35. Trying to educate them is useless. The agency thought of another social problem - shortage of organs needed. The idea is during the campaign aggressive drivers are asked to sign their organs to those who are waiting in line for a transplant by signing Organ Donors Certificate. Certificates were issued directly to aggressive drivers during raids by the Latvian road traffic police. So instead of getting a ticket which cost whatever $50, you will end up giving a liver away for driving above the speed limit!!
Not sure how they enforced that but it was effective. Number of victims dropped by 29%. You may not remember the ad, but you will always remember the day you signed your Organ Donors Certificate and devoted your organs to somebody else. Campaign raised as well the discussion of another social problem - the sortage of organ donors, Transplantation Center was very thankful and client had nothing against combined solution, since the main task was to save lives. Still not sure exactly how it works, first timers get to sign away their liver and seriouos offenders signs away their heart? Will find out more.
The more I think about it, borrow this idea to use on repeated violent criminals.
