The onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020 has kept people at home and off the roads.
However, a consequence of emptier roads has been a dangerous one: a severe uptick in motorists speeding. In early May, news articles began revealing excessive speeding and increased accidents and fatalities on our roads nationwide. In a video message released in June, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao stressed maintaining safe speeds, and driving safely, to save lives.
Driving Home a Meaningful Message—Fast
It’s a difficult time for clients to find relevant and authentic ways to speak to their audiences. Yes& identified the emerging speeding issue as an important opportunity for our client—the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)—to send out a meaningful safety message.
Creating a campaign during a pandemic, we learned a few things:
- Keep the whole team’s eyes and ears on industry news. Each new day’s news can spark an opportunity for your client. With the whole project team helping, ideas come from more places.
- Get your message out fast through social media. We used Facebook for this campaign, managed by our team, to get messaging out to our audiences as fast as possible before state governments reopened their economies—and traffic picked back up.
- Pitches happen from home. Blending work and family at home can create challenges for scheduling, and “uninterrupted” pitching. Thankfully, most clients understand ☺.
- An ever-changing environment calls for creative pivots. Yes& originally conceptualized a focus on thanking America’s truckers for keeping the country moving through this time. With the immediate need to combat speeding, we shifted messaging into an even more important push for safe driving, especially around these large vehicles.
Give Trucks Extra Space to #CarryOn
FMCSA’s mission is to promote safe driving around large trucks and buses.
In June, Yes& launched the “Thank You Truckers” campaign for FMCSA, which blended a safety message for driving safely around large vehicles, while acknowledging America’s trucking industry—by restocking groceries and medical supplies, delivering packages to our doors, and picking up our trash and recycling every week—has helped move the country forward during this time.
So, next time a truck driver stops on your street, be sure to say “Thanks!” And remember to give them the extra space they need on the road. Learn more at the Our Roads, Our Safety Facebook page.
