AXA: 'Respect the road'

Would Britain's roads be safer and more pleasant if everyone was a bit more respectful of each other? Car insurer AXA thinks so, and set out to see if drivers agreed. They sent a roving interview studio built into a taxi cab onto the streets of London to film the public's views on the issue of respect on the roads, and filmed a video in which five year olds mimicked the behaviour of aggressive and abusive drivers, showing the example that we're setting the next generation when it comes to driving habits.

STEAK took this video, and the 'CabCam' films, and used them to spark the debate in the online social media sphere. Through an online audit and social media research we identified the two most significant and interested audience groups as mothers and driving enthusiasts, and then shared the video content and 'respect the road' message with the key online influencers in these groups, including mother/parent bloggers, automotive bloggers and relevant social media group moderators.

We also used seeding partners to distribute the video, and ran opinion polls on Facebook to drive traffic to the campaign hub; the 'I respect the road' Facebook page.

As a result, the video content received over 250,000 views, the campaign was publicised on 450 social media sites and 80% of all blog comments received were in praise of the campaign's mission. Over a period of two months over 30,500 participants voted in the Facebook polls and STEAK had built an active community of over 4000 advocates on Facebook. This growing band of ambassadors now forms a solid base with whom AXA can build a dialogue and engage in future campaigns.