7% of Belgian drivers admit watching series or movies while driving. To address this staggering consumption of entertainment, we disguised our awareness campaign as a piece of entertainment on its own. To do so, we collaborated with Belgium’s biggest streaming platform to launch a new title ‘THE ROAD’, with a trailer on their platform, in between all other new titles. A trailer that urged the audience to watch the road when driving. Nothing else.

We all know drinking and driving, texting and driving, videocalling and driving. All of it life-threatening behavior. But nowadays, there’s a new killer on the road. Watching series or movies, and driving. Yes, you read that right. Research from the Belgian Traffic Institute (VIAS) shows that 7% of Belgian drivers admitted watching series and movies while driving (even worse, in the age group 18-34 that number is 18%!!). Shocked by this disturbing new behavior, “Parents of Road Victims” wanted to send a powerful message and remind everyone to watch the road. Nothing else.

Instead of a finger-wagging campaign or a flat awareness film, the association ‘Parents of Road Victims’ partnered with Streamz, Belgium’s biggest local streaming platform, to do something way more unusual: to disguise a road safety message as a piece of entertainment. Presented in the form of a trailer, entitled THE ROAD, placed on the platform itself, in between all other ‘new title’ trailers. It didn’t promote watching a series or a movie. Instead, it urged the viewers to Watch the road. Nothing else.”

The campaign was further amplified with a movie poster for “THE ROAD”, distributed in print and out of home.

Research from the Belgian Traffic Institute (VIAS) shows that 7% of Belgian drivers admit having watched a series or film while driving. As if that wasn’t bad enough, within the age group ’18 to 34’ that number even increases to 18%!! So, especially amongst young people, the ‘streaming and driving’ problem is downright shocking.

What we also know for many years now is that classic or finger-wagging road safety campaigns rarely have any behavioral effect. So, we needed to surprise the audience with a positive message at the exact right place, instead of yet another shocking ad.

Finally, another very important insight is that the streaming audience is a spoiled one. Always looking to be delighted and surprised by the best movies and series available. So, we knew we had to compete with the best possible entertainment to get their attention.

We crafted what looks like a trailer with award-winning director Delano Sookha and music composer Jaan Hantson. We named it ‘THE ROAD’ and added what looked like quotes from critics. “A must watch”. “Don’t miss a second.” “You need to see this”. Except that the quotes didn’t come from movie critics, but from actual parents who lost a child in a road safety accident. Which added an extra emotional layer to the film. The ‘THE ROAD’ trailer was placed in between other ‘new title’ trailers on Belgium’s biggest local streaming platform Streamz, providing a seamless and surprising native experience for the viewer, who only discovered the real message at the end of the film.

To quote SHOTS: “This cracking deliberate wrong-footer of a film is as emotive as it is effective”. And effective it was... Purely by the power of the ‘THE ROAD’ trailer and by the importance of its message, all other local Belgian streaming platforms requested to also include the trailer on their respective platforms (as a trailer amongst the trailers). Even Belgium’s largest cinema group ‘Kinepolis’ decided to screen the THE ROAD trailer during the preshow (so in between all other trailers), every evening, between 6pm and 11pm, for 4 weeks. Combined, this ensured that our message reached 7 out of 10 Belgians, right into our target audience: (young) Belgians who love movies and series. Making “The Road” one of the most watched titles of the year in Belgium. Telling everyone that the only must-watch thing that matters while driving is... The Road.