Aussie TV ad aims below the belt at young male speeders
New campaign seeks to get drivers' attention by mocking their manhood
  
Bruce Ward
Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, August 22, 2007


An ad campaign aimed at preventing traffic deaths in Australia mocks the manhood of speed-obsessed drivers by having women waggle a little finger at them.

The pinky gesture, meant to symbolize a small penis, hits male drivers where their sense of humour stops: below the belt.

The new ads show one young driver at a traffic light revving his engine and burning rubber in front of two young women. As the car speeds off, the women exchange a knowing glance and slowly wave their little finger.

The ads' tagline? "Speed: No one thinks big of you."

The Road and Traffic Authority (RTA) in New South Wales opted for the cheeky campaign when recent research showed its previous ads with images of horrific car crashes and fatalities were not working.

The state-wide ad campaign coincides with the introduction of new restrictions on learner drivers, including a ban on all cellphone use, limits on the number of young passengers allowed and tougher speeding penalties.

Last week, the Ontario government announced new measures that allow police to treat drivers going 50 kilometres or more over the speed limit the same as street racers. Under the measures, which take effect at the end of September, police can issue roadside seven-day licence suspensions and impound vehicles for a week. If convicted, excessive Ontario speeders face fines ranging from $2,000 to $10,000.

Speeding is a factor in about 40 per cent of road deaths in New South Wales each year, according to RTA figures.

"We accept this campaign is controversial, but we must find new ways to make our anti-speeding message sink in," said RTA spokesman John Whelan.

"This campaign continues RTA's efforts to do all we can to save lives on our roads.

"If the road toll is to be reduced further, we must make speeding socially unacceptable. We will do what we feel we have to, to get the message through."

The ads provide new meaning to giving someone the finger.

One of the 45-second ads shows a female pedestrian being forced back to the curb by a speeding driver. As she glares in disgust, the pinky gesture is made by a grandmotherly woman sitting on a nearby bench.

Their unmistakable message to the speeder is, you drive like a jerk so you must be compensating for your paltry physical endowment.

The first stage of the $2-million Cdn campaign includes television, movie theatre, and bus shelter advertisements.

"For a long time, nothing has challenged the fast car/big man image that car sellers sell," said Russell Watsford, a road safety marketing manager at the authority. "This does."

The new ads appear to have made quite an impression in a nation noted for its irreverent sense of humour. Within days of their appearance on TV, in cinemas, at bus stops and on buses, the road authority's website -- which also carried the ad -- registered more than 100,000 downloads and crashed three times. Now on YouTube, the ad has drawn more than a half-million views.

"It's been overwhelming," Watsford said. "What's in the media resonates strongly with this group, far better than straight advertizing."

© The Edmonton Journal 2007