Are you aware?

Maybe for the people in Gent, seeing someone driving a bicycle in the middle of the road is as common as someone driving a car. For London, apparently, the same doesn’t happen: the Transport for London (“the local government body responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London in England. Its role is to implement the transport strategy and to manage transport services across London”, in Wikipedia) has now a new preoccupation about the cyclists who go around London and need to pay attention to the drivers passing by. On March 2008 that TFL launched a different and creative campaign, not only on their website, but also on London’s cinemas, by publishing this video:

Now, did you expected the twist? I sure did not! I originally thought this was just one more video about some kind of test, for amusement. But no: TFL wants to show to people how we may not be aware of everything that goes around us and, while driving, cyclists can be one of them.

The amazing thing about this campaign is that gets people attention: you get excited when you get the number 13 right, but then all fall down when you discover what you missed. It’s impossible not to feel disappointed and claim to self “Maybe I do need to pay more attention…”. That was the purpose of the organization, according with it’s spokesman: "The ad encourages all road users to be more aware of each other while travelling - it aims to make drivers aware just how easy it can be to miss cyclists on the road and for cyclists to understand how difficult they can be to see." (On BBC News)

By November, the video had seen by 10 million people and it became so successful that TFL launched a new one, as surprising as the first one:

All in all, we can say that creativity can always have its good side: you can get your message across through a number of different ways but, the moment you get can pass that message in a way that people will remembered it, even the better! I came across this video through Facebook, a couple of days ago; it’s still on! In the end, the best campaigns are the ones you always get to talk about with your friends, the ones you want to share; more and more we are the means of marketing, more than television or printed ads. If we go to the cinema and see how amazing that video is, we will want to show it to our friends and TFL, more than just getting the message through, knew how to use the means in their favour. 

Inês Maria