Project overview
GHOST CHIPS — NZTA
From my time as Copywriter, Clemenger BBDO.
THE PROBLEM
Every drink driving campaign used scare tactics and statistics to try and shift behaviour. For rangatahi this was never going to cut it. This audience viewed authority figures lecturing them with instant resistance. The core barrier wasn't a lack of awareness about the dangers. We needed another way in.
THE SOLUTION
Shift the positioning entirely. We realised our audience wouldn't listen to their parents or the police. The only people they'd listen to were their mates. It was the intense social pressure preventing teenagers from speaking up to an impaired peer. Stop trying to force a hero, and create a low stakes social exit ramp instead.
Instead of lecturing the driver, the strategy targeted the bystander. It gave young New Zealanders a humorous, non confrontational vernacular to intervene without risking their social status. The strategic engine relied on a relatable Kiwi moment: a guy coming home to find his mates had eaten his ghost chips.
THE RESULTS
50% reduction in NZ teenage drink-driving in the five years surrounding the campaign.
90% prompted awareness across the entire New Zealand population.
100,000 YouTube views in the first six days. 1,000,000+ views within two weeks, the fastest-growing NZ ad at the time.
75% of target audience reported the ad made them directly less likely to ride with an impaired driver.
Effie Grand Prix winner and voted Greatest New Zealand Ad of All Time.
THE TAKEAWAY
Creative is the easy part to admire, strategy is the part that moves the needle. Ghost Chips worked because the behavioural mechanics were mapped before a single frame was shot, the humour simply carried the message past the audience's natural defences. Think before you shoot, and measure what actually moved.
