Crash Test
How messaging in car crash commercials grabs your attention
Route 24 is your civic education stop for stories driving public trust. It’s a space for policy debates, immersive storytelling, and social innovation.
Driver’s Ed is a column that parks in your inbox on Mondays to shift your gears on key policy debates and test drive people-powered solutions.
In this issue: Life can change in a flash. AT&T’s 2015 “It Can Wait” campaign depicts the devastating consequences of checking your phone while driving and garnered over 2 million views within its first week of going live on YouTube. Before 1990, not a single advertisement featured an automotive accident that involved people. Since then, the car crash commercial has created a lane of its own in advertising circles, using attention-grabbing messaging. Let’s go for a spin to find out how.
Want to read more by Route 24? Follow along on Bluesky and Notes.
Crashing Glasses
In 1983, the Ad Council ran a car crash campaign solely based on metaphor. The “Crashing Glasses” campaign featured two beer mugs crashing into one another and shattering to the sound of a car crash.
You Can Learn A Lot From A Dummy
By 1985, the “Vince and Larry” campaign switched gears from the usual shock-and-awe PSA-style, instead leveraging slapstick humor between the crash test dummies to motivate drivers to buckle up.
Split-Second Decision
In 2014, a campaign in New Zealand used a fusion of freeze frame and slow motion techniques to depict the moment before a car crash. Unlike the use of situational context in “It Can Wait”, or the sound of a car crash in “Crashing Glasses”, what happens next in the dramatic sequence is left up to the viewer, using only a verbal cue to raise the stakes. The approach garnered the ad 4 million views within its first week of launch.
Attention may drive traffic, but what style of messaging do you think could make a difference in behavior behind the wheel?
Our Political Moment
In 2022, while working on this project in D.C., I took the train to see Cecile Richards speak on a panel at the Brooklyn Museum. She spoke eloquently about the political moment — the ramifications of overturning Roe v. Wade, the impact on generations of women in America, and the importance of voting in the midterm elections. Cecile Richards dared you to care beyond the limits of yourself and her voice in the advocacy dialogues for equitable access to women’s healthcare will be deeply missed.
As always, thank you for joining Route 24 on this road!
Stay the course,
Sam
