Romania is the European country with the highest number of death caused by road accidents, yet, in 2014, despite all efforts made by the police, 6 out of 10 Romanian drivers don’t wear their seatbelts.

The Romanian Automobile Club(ACR) wanted to change this and asked for our help. Without any media budget, we needed to leverage both social media and traditional PR to drive awareness and engagement, and affect behavior change. But how to make seatbelts hard to ignore in a country where everybody ignores seatbelts?

Simple: we stopped talking to everybody, and focused on the more cautious half of the target (the women) and offered them a new reason to wear seatbelts. #seatbeltb00bing - our hashtag encouraged women drivers to take selfies while wearing seatbelts and upload them to social media. More and more local celebrities and several TV stations joined the initiative and urged others to do the same.

Overnight, from an ignored item, seatbelts became the trendiest and the most talked about accessory to wear in Romania and not only. Our campaign made headlines on Euronews, CBS, Yahoo and GQ, amongst others. From the US to Thailand and from Mexico to Japan, it was for the first time a Romanian PSA spread this far and wide. With $0 media spent, we’ve reached 7 million Romanians, generated $492K worth of free media and 197.405.629 media impressions, making #seatbeltb00bing the number 1 cause related hashtag in Romania.

The campaign objective was to make people pay attention and interact with our road safety message:

(1) Generate free PR and buzz around our road safety message, measured in the free media earned by the campaign.

(2) Increase public awareness of wearing seatbelts - measured in number of people reached by our message.

(3) Turn “Seatbelt Wearing” - into a social media conversation topic, people wanted to engage with - measured in the number of conversations generated in social media.

With zero media budget, the campaign became instantly viral and the first PSA to spread across borders, #seatbeltb00bing became the number 1 cause-related hashtag in Romania and seatbelts became the trendiest and most talked about accessory to wear, nationwide.

(1) PR and BUZZ worth of $492.000 free media

(2) PUBLIC AWARENESS: We reached 7,000,000 Romanians (around 68% of total Romanian internet population) benefiting from the valuable support of main TV stations, bloggers and online and offline press, that became pro-bono contributors to a great cause

The campaign generated 197,405,629 media impressions – making headlines in 15 countries in 4 continents (including on Euronews, CBS, Yahoo or GQ, amongst others)

(3) ENGAGEMENT: 900,000 conversations in Romania alone, on wearing seatbelts, from virtually 0 conversation on the topic

Introducing #seatbeltb00bing – the hashtag that encouraged women drivers to take selfies while wearing the seatbelt and upload them to social media. Since we didn’t have any media budget, we planned the amplification in two phases:

1. Use #seatbeltb00bing to stir up conversations. We asked a few women drivers to use the hashtag, without revealing the message. The action caught on immediately and more women drivers joined, including some celebrities.

2. Ask for commitment: selfies for a good cause. After the hashtag gained some momentum, we created a video featuring 3 local celebrities that had already joined the cause and posted selfies wearing seatbelts, and explained what seatbeltb00bing was all about, sending an invitation to women out there to contribute with their selfies wearing the seatbelt using our hashtag.

More celebrities and several TV stations joined the initiative and urged others to do the same.

With zero media budget, the campaign became instantly viral and the first PSA to spread across borders, #seatbeltb00bing became the number 1 cause-related hashtag in Romania and seatbelts became the trendiest and most talked about accessory to wear, nationwide.

Romania has the highest number of deaths caused by road accidents in Europe. The seatbelt, or better say not wearing it, is one the top three “main road killers”. Yet, in Romania, 6 out of 10 drivers don’t wear their seatbelts.

The Romanian Automobile Club (ACR) has been around for 110 years and has been actively involved in improving road safety in Romania ever since. They asked for our help to do something to grab our audience's attention and overcome the usual avoidance and ignoring of PSA, while having 0 media budget for it.

We targeted young Romanian drivers (53% of the drivers involved in road accidents in Romania).

They believed the seatbelt sent the wrong message about them, portraying lack of self-confidence and that it is for “losers”. We had to change this.

We decided to give seatbelts a new dimension and give drivers a different reason for wearing it beyond safety.

In “the year of selfie”, people seemed more interested in looks than anything else. So, we stopped talking to everybody and focused only on half of the target - the more receptive one, with potential to resonate greatly to looks and fashion: the women.

Avoiding the typical scary and patronizing voice of authority we created a #seatbeltb00bing - the hashtag to go with their selfies, empowering women to amplify our safety message and help turn seatbelts into a TREND and a cool thing to wear.