Wild animal inspired road safety campaign launches in Melbourne

A live outdoor ad campaign in Melbourne’s CBD featuring wild animals has been created by Bachelor of Communication Design (Honours) students. The designs promote road safety and highlight the dangers of distraction. Launched in partnership with oOh!media the ads are located at major road intersections and popular meeting places on digital billboards and screens across the city.

oOh!media billboard featuring a cassowary, designed by honours students.

The “You miss a lot when you are distracted” campaign, developed as part of the Re:act behaviour change program is eye-catching and visually powerful. Images of wild animals on street signs, poles, roads, crossings and alleyways are on 162 digital assets across Melbourne. Locations include sites on Punt Road, St Kilda and the Princes Highway in Geelong. 

Billboard at major Melbourne intersection, designed by honours students

Designed and developed earlier this year, the wild animal campaign was created by Swinburne Communications Design (Honours) students, Laura Hughes, Caitlin Xavier, Stephanie Powell and Thomas Pritchard.

In partnership with Re:act, the road safety initiative of creative behaviour change agency, Hard Edge and out-of-home advertising company oOh!media. The design students worked collaboratively with Hard Edge and oOh!media to refine the campaign.

Illuminated billboard featuring wild snake and colours, designed by honours students.

“The campaign featured inspired use of colour on wild animals and a correlating road safety danger, such as a car,” Hard Edge Managing Director Andrew Hardwick says.

“It displays incredible and insightful thinking to shift the audience’s focus to something that’s out of place and at the same time relate it to something that is present and should be the centre of attention,” he says.

Campaign signage in CBD café, designed by Swinburne honours students.

“Re:act’s vision is to give young road users, who are over-represented in trauma statistics, a voice in road safety so they can influence their own age group. It’s so inspiring to see the amazing creativity this young group came up with. oOh!media have been a wonderful contributor to the program and continue to enthusiastically support its objective of making our roads safer for all users,” explains Hardwick

Signage in CBD eatery, designed by Swinburne honours students.

Noel Cook, oOh!media’s Chief Commercial and Operations Officer, says the company was proud to be supporting such an important campaign, and the students.

“Road safety initiatives like these save lives, and we are utilising a wide range of valuable assets to take these messages to the public and spread the word to young drivers,” he says.

“The students have displayed outstanding creativity in coming up with their campaigns, and our team has enjoyed working with them to develop their ideas and see them realised across prominent digital billboards and screens,” adds Cook.

Signage featuring a cheetah near Melbourne Town Hall, designed by honours students.

Hardwick says the vision for Re:act is to bring young people together with government and industry to give them a real-world experience but also activate their road safety campaigns in public to change the behaviour of road users. 

Crocodile and colours feature in the CBD, by design honours students.

“A critical by-product from Re:act is that all participating students, members of the target demographic, develop greater awareness of road safety issues through the process of conceptualising and designing the behaviour change campaigns,” says Nicki Wragg, Chair of Communication Design at Swinburne.

The oOh!media partnership is enabling this vision to become a reality. Hard Edge continues to grow the Re:act program and this is another step towards the national model of Re:act, where a chosen student campaign will run nationally across Australia.