Speeding on rural roads is major issue in Australia. In fact, the death toll has increased by 20% in the last year. Traditional shock tactics weren’t working.

In an effort to reduce the road toll, we joined forces with the tiny rural town of Speed (population 45) and asked them to promote the slowing-down on rural roads message on our behalf. The people of Speed agreed to change their town’s name to SpeedKills if they got enough 'likes' on Facebook.

We worked closely with the townsfolk to spread the word, through online content, TVC’s and social media.

Their homes and workplaces formed the backdrop to the campaign.

No scripts. No actors. Just real people telling a story of frustration and appealing to the community to support their cause.

The campaign exploded, catching the attention of social and broadcast media worldwide.Speed is now called SpeedKills, and people are slowing down.

Buried in the Australian outback is a tiny town called Speed (population 45 – yes, 45). They agreed to change their town’s name to SpeedKills if enough people liked the idea on Facebook.

We made of series of documentary-style videos featuring the people of Speed, from a simple appeal to support the name change, to a quirky slow car race. No actors, no scripts, just real people telling a story of frustration.

The content was used throughout the campaign, driving people to the Rename Speed Facebook page where they would show their support and spread the word.

The messaging propagated wildly through social media. Twitter and Blogger outreach took the campaign even wider.

We fuelled the campaign with more content, SEM, Video seeding, and Facebook advertising, all building visibility and traffic.

$60,000 budget received over millions of dollars worth of media exposure for the slow-down message.

On Facebook, there were over 35,200 public declarations of people wanting others to slow down (a quarter of them young males).

These declarations were viewed by 1,641,000 people.

There were over 10,200,000 impressions of the message on Twitter. Not bad for a town of 45 people called SpeedKills!