1. Introduction
This project aims to advertise the importance of fastening seat belts to rear-seat passengers using lessons learnt from the case study on the successful Dumb Ways to Die (DWTD) campaign in Melbourne, Australia. Research shows that seat belt compliance rate of Singaporeans was lower than those of residents from neighboring countries (Chan, 2017) while seat belt compliance rate of rear-seat passengers was lower than front-seat passengers or drivers (Chin et al., 2016; L. Lim, 2018).
Rear-seat passengers do not buckle up because of the following reasons. In the February 2013 issue of Torque (Chua, 2014), rear-seat passengers believe back seats are safer. They may also not be used to wearing seat belts (Chan, 2017). As there are close to 7000 car accidents involving rear-seat passengers not buckling up (Kamarudin, A. R.,2018), we would like to propose strategies that advertise the message of seat belt safety to rear-seat passengers and encourage drivers to remind rear-seat passengers to buckle up.
2. Case Study: Dumb Ways to Die in Melbourne
In 2012, Metro Trains in Melbourne launched the DWTD campaign to raise awareness on safety about platforms in train stations to reduce deaths that were avoidable among teenagers (Coloribus, 2013). The campaign targeted teenagers of ages 14-25, as they thought the likelihood of getting into an accident is low as mentioned by the DWTD CEO Leah Waymark (Sayer, 2017). The campaign made use of entertainment such as music and games to educate teenagers (Sayer, 2017). The campaign has proven to be a success as it has been found that there was 20% decrease in reckless behaviors of the teenagers around trains such as running on the platforms or stepping beyond the yellow lines after the campaign was released (Hicks, 2015)
2.1. DWTD Game
Metro Trains released a digital game on smartphones that featured various cartoon characters dying due to their reckless behaviors (Figures 1 and 2).
Figure 1: Stumble Figure 2: Numpty
A set of instructions is given for every scene, and the player has to follow the instructions to save the characters from dying in the limited amount of time given (Figure 3).
Figure 3: DWTD game instructions
DWTD game showcased characters dying in gruesome manners when players did not follow the set of instructions in time. This was intentionally done to present the reality of deaths, if one was to get hit by a train (Sayer, 2017). However, despite the morbid nature of the topic, the use of cartoons made the DWTD game more lighthearted and acceptable in the eyes of the public. The purpose of the game was to first focus on entertainment rather than advertising to capture the attention of teenagers before subtly infusing the message into their minds (Diaz, 2013).
69% of Australian teenagers with a mobile phone used a smartphone (Ortega-Montiel, 2014). Therefore, DWTD chose the digital platform to advertise their game. The game is available on Apple and Android play stores from May to September 2013 to make the game accessible for most smartphone users (Aisfm, 2013). The game has proven to be successful as the game was able to reach out and promote its main message to many teenagers in Australia and it became the number 1 app in Australia with more than a million Australians pledging to be safe through the mobile game (Coloribus, 2013).
The learning point is it is more effective to provide entertainment as a form of advertising, to capture the attention of teenagers, before educating teenagers, conveying the desired message. Hence, using games to advertise is effective, as it is an effective source of entertainment among teenagers.
2.2. DWTD Music Video
The video was published on November 14, 2012 and features cartoonish characters dying in ridiculous ways. The adorable visuals made the message humorous and appealing to people, especially young people (Hicks, 2012). Accompanying the zany visuals was a catchy tune and signature lyrics that attracted its audience (Diaz, 2013). This could be seen from the video that was uploaded on YouTube attaining 167 million views as of June 10, 2018 (Figure 4) and it was used to promote the DWTD game.
Figure 4: Dumb Ways to Die Music Video
Graphics Interchange Format (GIFs) which are short animations that can be replayed were also used. GIFs with DWTD cartoon characters were created, and then shared on various social media sites like Facebook and Twitter where people can share and like these GIFs (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Dumb Ways to Die GIF on Tumblr
The DWTD GIFs are also published on Reddit’s front page, where posting and reposting of DWTD GIFs allows people to have an increased awareness of the campaign (Kissane, 2015).
The lesson learnt from Metro Trains is that they know how to capitalize on the popularity, shareability and accessibility of social media platforms well to effectively reach out to teenagers.
3. New Area: Seat Belts Safety in Singapore
In 2015 to 2017, there are close to 7000 cases of rear-seat passengers caught by the Traffic Police (TP) for not fastening their seat belts annually (Figure 6).
Year:
2015
2016
2017
Violations
5,389
6,845
6,549
Figure 6: Number of seat belt violations by rear-seat passengers from years 2015-2017
(Source: Ahmad Rais Kamarudin, Personal Communication, July 18, 2018)
Our survey with 128 respondents from the general public has indicated that 82.8% of the respondents know the fact that they have to put on seat belts while they are riding in the rear-seats in the car they take (Figure 7) and that 78.1% of them do not fasten their seat belts all the time, though majority of the people know they have to do it (Figure 8).
Inserting image…
Figure 7: Are you aware that you have to put on seat belts when seated at the backseat of the car?
(Source: Survey)
Forms response chart. Question title: Do you put on your seat belts when you are seated at the backseat of the car? . Number of responses: 128 responses.
Figure 8: Do you put on your seat belts when you are seated at the backseat of the car?
(Source: Survey)
Thus, our project will be mainly targeting the people who are seated at the rear-seats of the car.
As rear-seat passengers do buckle up when they are told to do so (Chan, 2017), it is important to also encourage drivers to remind rear-seat passengers to buckle up. The Singapore population is around 5.607 million (Department of Statistics Singapore, 2017) and there is an estimated 1.97 million registered drivers in 2016 (Data.gov.sg, 2017). Therefore, the potential rear-seat passengers sum up to around 3.647 million which is approximately 65% of the Singapore population. Hence there is a significant need to educate the general public of Singapore about the significance of seat belts.
One main root cause for rear-seat passengers not fastening their seat belts is due to a majority of them taking the consequences of not fastening their seat belts lightly, thinking that rear-seat passengers suffer less injuries as compared to front-seat passengers (Figure 9).
Figure 9: Do you think that if a car was involved in a car accident, the rear-seat passengers will suffer more serious injuries as compared to the front seat passengers?
(Source: Survey)
The other root cause is that passengers do not have a habit of fastening their seatbelts, since it was not strictly imposed onto them. From the survey, 51.6% of people claimed that they did not have a habit of fastening their seat belts, thus compromising their safety (Figure 10).
Inserting image…
Figure 10: If occasionally or never, what are the reasons?
(Source: Survey)
Another root cause of rear-seat passengers not fastening their seat belts is because drivers do not remind them to fasten the seat belts (Figure 11). Thus, another target audience our group is focusing on is, encouraging drivers to remind the rear-seat passengers to fasten their seat belts. When drivers educate and remind rear-seat passengers, they are more empowered to fasten their seat belts.
Figure 11: As a driver, why do you not remind the rear-seat passengers to fasten their seat belts?
4. Overview of Strategies
In order to raise more awareness about seatbelt safety, we decided to propose the Fasten Fast campaign. Under this campaign, there are three branches—FastenVid, FastenShow and FastenRewards (Figure 12).
Figure 12: Conceptual Framework of Strategies
4.1. FastenVid
This strategy is a video that advertises to rear-seat passengers the severity of the consequences of not putting on seat belt. It also proves to drivers that car accidents are unexpected. It will be 90 seconds long because for videos that are one to two minutes long, viewers’ engagement is at the highest at 70% (Fishman, 2016). The video will be produced in conjunction with National Safety First Council because their previous road safety campaign increased public awareness of road safety (T. Lim, 2014). The production costs range roughly from S$14,000 to S$345,000 (Meytin, 2018).
The video features Moses Lim as the father because he received the Best Actor Award in Asia Television Awards and is thus well known amongst locals (M. Lim, 2018). It is filmed in first-person perspective because a first-person perspective brings us into the experience of the main character (Fusco, 2017). A sample storyboard of the storyline of the video is made (Figures 13, 14 and 15).
Figure 13: Storyboard #1
Figure 14: Storyboard #2
The video shows a story depicting the loss of a loved one, which is relatable to Singaporeans of all age groups and walks of life. Family is a top priority for Singaporeans (Koh, 2016), so when they put themselves in the shoes of the characters, they understand how a careless act of not buckling up or not reminding their loved one to buckle up can cause an eternal regret. The sudden nature of the car crash emphasizes that car accidents can happen unexpectedly at any moment.
At the end of the video, shocking statistics of the number of casualties and deaths of passengers who do not fasten their seat belts are shown because research shows that numbers give more weight to the advertised message (Newbold, 2017). The video ends with our tagline Fasten Fast, followed by a QR code that leads to our campaign website (Figure 15).
Figure 15: Storyboard #3
The website, Fasten Fast, will promote FastenShow. Its main page features a virtual tour around the roadshow because virtual tours help double interest in business listings (Petracco, 2017). Players can move around the vicinity of the roadshow to see the different stations of the roadshow (Figure 16).
Figure 16: Event flow of virtual tour
4.1.1. Cinema Advertising
We will be collaborating with major movie theatres in the cinema industry in Singapore, such as Golden Village to play a video advertisement before the start of a movie in the cinema halls. We chose Golden Village because they are Singapore's leading cinema exhibitor with 13 multiplexes, housing 106 screens (Golden Village, 2018). We chose cinemas as an avenue to advertise our cause because there is a high number of 19 million attendees going to cinemas in Singapore each year (Info-communications Media Development Authority (SG), 2018) and cinema theaters offer an immersive experience (Arnold, 2017). Moreover, 97% of audiences watch advertisements before movies, hence majority of the general public will be exposed to the advertisement (Figure 17).
Figure 17. Statistics of audience in Singapore who watches advertisements before movies
The estimate cost of such an advertisement is $700 per hall per week (Ong A., personal communication, October 9, 2018).
Cinema advertising is the most effective method of video advertising because cinemas have a massive speaker system (Opam, Plaugic, Robinson, Tiffany, 2017), hence the high-quality audio will greatly enhance the emotional impact. Furthermore, the video is screened on full screen, increasing the immersion level of the audience.
4.1.2. Social Media Advertising
The video will be also be uploaded on various social media platforms like Youtube, Facebook and Instagram. These social media platforms are chosen because of their high social penetration rates in Singapore; Youtube has a 71% social media penetration rate while Facebook has 70% and Instagram has 44% (Statista, 2017). The video will be shared in the forms of story posts on Instagram and Facebook because they are full-screen and immersive (Donnelly, 2018) (Figure 18).
Figure 18: Instagram Story Post
4.2. FastenShow
The roadshow highlights the need of fastening seat belts to rear-seat passengers and drivers. The roadshow would be held at various Housing and Development Board town plazas in populated areas, such as Bukit Merah, Woodlands and Jurong East (Ng, n.d.) at various dates, so that the roadshows are readily accessible to most people. The roadshow’s venues consist of different activities such as Virtual Reality Booth, talks from traffic police to talk about the importance of seat belts, TerroRIDE and Pledge Booth. (Figure 18).
Figure 18: Map of Fasten Fast Roadshow
4.2.1. The Virtual Reality (VR) Station
The racing station allows people to experience the effects of seat belt protection. To participate, players will sit on a 4-dimensional simulation chair and put on a VR headset. The VR experience will last for 3 to 5 minutes (Figure 19).
Figure 19: Virtual Reality Station
After the players fasten their seat belts, the game will start. They are playing as a rear-seat passenger who will experience different types of rides due to different terrains in the different maps (Figure 20).
Figure 20: Control Panel of the Virtual Reality Machine
Throughout the course of the ride, the car will be swerving through other vehicles at a high speed (Figure 21)
.
Figure 21: Car Racing Game Screen that will be shown on the screen of the VR headset
As the car turns, accelerates or make sudden breaks, the 4-dimensional simulation chair will jerk accordingly to the movement of the car in the game. (Figure 22).
Figure 22: Jerking of the 4-dimensional chair
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NOchGdBdviQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
At the end of the game, a white text will appear: You could’ve been thrown out of the car during the dangerous ride, but your simple decision of fastening the seat belt has saved your life.â€, to make participants reflect on their actions.
The game will be first released on Samsung Gear VR, which costs $129 (Smith, 2017), since Samsung dominates significantly in the Singapore market (Hio, 2017). The headset will be paired with Roto VR chair, which costs $999, as it supports a variety of VR headsets (Roto, 2018). We decide to promote VR with the motion chair together, as people remember 90% of what they can do or simulate (Isacsson, 2016). Hence, VR allows them to remember the importance of seat belt more vividly.
4.2.2 Traffic Police Ambassador Talk
Figure 21: Timeline
A TP officer will conduct a talk at the start in English, discussing about the issue of rear-seat passengers not wearing seat belts and the dire consequences of not doing so. Slides will be used to accompany the talk. On the screen, three different ethnic languages, Chinese, Malay and Tamil will be shown, catering to people who may not be well versed in English (Figure 22).
Figure 22: Example of a talk by Traffic police
Victims who failed to fasten their seat belts that were involved in car accidents will be invited to share their stories, as stories can change people positively (Connors, 2017). One possible guest speaker is Dr Ishkawa Natsuko, who fractured her skull, face and spine because she did not buckle up before setting off in a cab (Vijayan, 2016).
The TP will then encourage the audience to wear their seat belts by telling them about the incentives of FastenRewards, like the discounted petrol from Shell and Caltex they can get.
There will also be volunteers who are fluent in dialects stationed around the seating area to translate the information to those who have troubles understanding the 4 languages, mainly the elderly.
4.2.3. TerroRIDE
We will be collaborating with Xbox to create an application for Xbox One Kinect Sensor which cost $104.95 (Amazon, 2018). The person can sit or lie on a makeshift back seat of a car. The device will scan their posture and project it onto a screen in front of them. The screen will then show an animated cartoon character mimicking the person’s posture which will get thrown around in the car or even out of the car in many different ways according to what posture the player portrays (Figure 23).
Figure 23: How does Xbox Kinect work
After the simulation, it will then show a detailed report of the player’s injuries. This simulation allows the seriousness of not wearing a seat belt at the rear seat to be brought across to the audience using black comedy. Comedy allows people to remember funny things better (Mariam Adawiah, Tunku Saraa Zawyah, 2013). Also, the use of cartoon characters reduces the gruesomeness of the animation, making it more acceptable to people of all age groups.
4.3 FastenRewards
FastenRewards rewards good drivers who display good knowledge and awareness about the safety of their rear-seat passengers as well as themselves. There will be three phases that this strategy will be carried out in.
In Phase 1, there will be speed cameras set up at the lamp posts at the road side of the 10 different expressways in Singapore which uses artificial intelligence to detect belted drivers and passengers in a car (Figure 27).
Figure 24: In-vehicle unit found in a Singapore car
Figure 25: Speed Cameras on Singapore Expressways
For Phase 2, the first 1000 cars that are identified at each expressway with drivers and passengers putting on seat belts at a random day every week will be awarded with the decals labelled with a 6-digit code and a letter of instructions pertaining to the installation of the FastenRewards application (Figure 27).
Figure 27. Decal to place on back windows of cars
In Phase 3, passengers and drivers can install the FastenRewards application on AppStore and GooglePlay, First-time FastenRewards Application users will input the 6-digit code (Figure 28) found on their decal. Afterwards, they will be directed to their own account page where they can track the number of points that are provided by the traffic police (Figure 29) and also the number of points needed in exchange for the prizes (Figure 30).
Figure 28: Login Page for FastenRewards Application
Figure 29: Account and Transaction Page for FastenRewards
Figure 30: Rewards page for FastenRewards Application
We will be collaborating with petrol stations such as Caltex and Shell to sponsor for some of the rewards that are given out to the users. There are 56 outlets of Shell (Shell, 2018) and 26 outlets of Caltex (Caltex, 2018), which makes it convenient for drivers to attain their rewards.
4.4 Limitations
For FastenVid, the emotional impact may not be long-lasting. Therefore, we should constantly update the Fasten Fast social media accounts with posts depicting the seriousness of car accidents experienced by rear-seat passengers. This is so that we show our commitment to our audience and constantly engage them (Dodaro, 2017).
For FastenShow, it is a large-scale event that can only be stationed at certain venues in Singapore, making it hard to reach out to a wider audience. The roadshow can be adapted and turned into a smaller scale event, such as a minibus that travel around Singapore, reaching out to more people.
For FastenRewards, drivers may not remind rear-seat passengers to buckle up because of a change in mindset. Hence, the FastenRewards application will have a daily trivia feature which asks drivers questions about road safety to both assess their understanding and also to clear up any misconceptions they may have.
5. Conclusion
As Singaporean passengers have yet to recognize the magnitude of the danger that their putting themselves in when they do not fasten their seat belts, more car fatalities that would result from car accidents would increase.
We hope that our proposed campaign, Fasten Fast, can send out strong and important messages to help them realize the danger and the simple act of fastening one’s seat belt can reduce the danger, as to protect the welfare and safety of fellow passengers. These strategies, once announced and put into use, will dramatically reduce risk of death and serious injury (US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014).