Meet Graham, the only person designed to survive on our roads. Part interactive sculpture, part educational tool and ultimately a catalyst for conversation, Graham shows us how humans would need to change to survive a car crash. Over several months a trauma surgeon and a road safety engineer collaborated with a world-renowned artist using decades of road safety data, medical research and creativity to deliver evolution underpinned by evidence.

Their goal was to create a visceral experience with a simple, unavoidable message. If you don’t look like Graham then you need to slow down on our roads.

During the process key weaknesses in the human body were identified and modified, each change told a new story, showing what happens to our bodies in common crash scenarios.

People were introduced Graham via digital and real world experiences, with the interactive exhibition touring regional areas where people are 4 times more likely to be involved in a crash.

Visitors used Tango, Google’s augmented reality technology (a first) to go beneath his skin and better understand his anatomy. Each physiological change was a new source of information showing what happens to your body in a crash.

For a wider audience that couldn’t meet Graham in person, social and online comms encouraged people to visit www.meetgraham.com.au. The site replicated the in-person experience, providing visitors with the interactive tools to explore him in 360 degrees, both internally and externally, to understand his physiology and the forces that come into play during a car crash.

As Graham was adopted into school curriculums, the site also served as a portal for educators to obtain lesson ideas in subjects spanning science, arts and civics.

To date 287,282 people have visited Graham in the flesh, with an 86% increase in gallery visitation wherever Graham went. 1 in 6 people in regional areas saw the exhibition.

Beyond the exhibit, Graham sparked a global road safety conversation. With over 10 million website visits in 5 days, 89% campaign message recall and 1.2 Billion global impressions in the first week.

Graham has been adopted by the W.H.O. as the global face of road safety for 2017.

An indication of the cultural impact of Graham comes from Google; search for ‘Graham’ and the first page of web results, and first 15 images, are all of the ‘Meet Graham’ campaign, achieved organically through user action ($0 on SEO).

But the most important influence Graham has is on our future drivers, as he was integrated into school curriculums. To date over 2000 educational resources have been downloaded from the meetgraham.com.au website.

‘Meet Graham’ was a unique direct response campaign with behavior change at its heart. The Graham sculpture was the centre piece of it all with the touring exhibition reaching hundreds of thousands of Australians, with the web experience reaching millions more.

It was created with the aim of bringing our Transport Accident Commission’s brand ambition to life, of creating a completely new way of talking to consumers about road safety, changing perception and behaviours. Graham provoked a visceral reaction from all who met him, and generated interaction and meaningful consumer participation to promote safer behaviour on our roads.

People understand that car crashes are traumatic, but as soon as you try to explain concepts like ‘kinetic energy’ or ‘impact force’ their eyes glaze over. So we went back to something every single road user could identify with; the human form.

Throughout the process, decades of road safety data and medical research was interpreted and filtered by our key contributors Trauma Surgeon Christian Kenfield, Road Safety Engineer Dr David Logan and TAC’s own road safety researchers. This data helped identify the key weaknesses in the human body, which were then visualised by our artist, Patricia Piccinni.

We then invited people to Meet Graham in the flesh and at meetgraham.com.au – the title itself being our primary call to action.

In 2011 the UN declared ‘global road deaths’ as a major public health problem and for this to be the Decade of Action. For over 25yrs the Transport Accident Commission in Australia have been successful pioneers of shock advertising campaigns that have helped drive that road toll down. But in recent times Australians have become desensitised to these tactics and the road toll is on the rise.

By our very nature, people tend to overlook or play down their own frailties, their own vulnerabilities, as this is far easier than facing their own mortality. Whilst this is a natural behaviour, when it comes to road safety it is a dangerous one. The TAC needed to find a way to cut through to people fatigued of road safety messages and create a visceral experience that would once again get them to consider their own vulnerabilities and prioritise safe road behaviour.