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Re:act is an initiative of Hard Edge in collaboration with Swinburne University. Each year we give a creative brief to design students that challenges them to raise awareness of a road safety issue and change behaviour among 18-25 year olds; their peers.
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The Re:act Story
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Re:act gives communication design students the opportunity to engage with industry to develop a behavioural change campaign that positively influences the communities they live in.
In 2016 Hard Edge launched the Re:act behavioural change initiative in collaboration with Swinburne University of Technology School of Design. Re:act was created to provide design students with the experience of responding to a real world brief and pitching to real clients, and to raise awareness of road safety issues among 18-25 year olds and change their behaviour, making our roads safer for all. Re:act was launched with the support of our foundation partners TAC, RACV, Transurban, ARRB Group and the National Road Safety Partnership Program - who provided invaluable expertise in road safety and transport. In 2018, we welcomed two new partners - the Australian Trucking Association and Melbourne Metro Rail Authority. Since launching, Re:act has become a mandatory part of the course curriculum for Swinburne communication design students and 2019 will see the launch of Re:act in NSW.
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The Vision
• Give students the real-world experience of having clients at the top of their professions in road safety • Take it across Australia and NZ • Achieve enough backing to have a national winner’s campaign executed nationally • Influence as many young drivers as possible to be safer through awareness
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“
The Re:act program is a wonderful connector of generations, skill sets and ideas that inspires real answers to serious challenges.” – Ben Maguire CEO, Australian Trucking Association
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How Re:act Works Each Year Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
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1. Agree on topic (Sep-Oct) Hard Edge and Re:act partners agree on the issue that Re:act will focus on for the following year. It should be something topical with strong relevance for 18-25 year olds.
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2. Write the brief (Nov-Dec) Hard Edge write creative brief and supply it to partners and Swinburne for input. After amends are made, the final brief is signed off.
3. Supply the brief (Feb) Brief is supplied to students via email.
4. Q &A (Feb-March) A Q&A session is held for the students with the panel of partners. This provides the students an opportunity to clarify any queries they have on the brief with the subject matter experts.
Mar
Apr
May
June
July
Aug
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5. Check-in (March) 3-4 weeks after receiving the brief, a check-in session is held for the students with the panel of partners. This gives students an opportunity to present their work in progress and receive feedback and direction from the partners.
6. Campaign pitches (April) Approximately 6-8 weeks after receiving the brief, each of the students/groups pitch their campaign to the panel of partners at the annual Re:act day. The pitches are scored by the panel and finalists and winner are announced on the day.
7. D evelop and execute winning campaign (May-Aug) Using funding from Re:act partners, the winning student/group develops and executes their campaign with support from Hard Edge.
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Timeline Re:act behavioural change project conceptualised and developed by Hard Edge in collaboration with Swinburne University.
2015
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Foundation partners signed up: TAC, RACV, Transurban, NRSPP, ARRB Group.
2016
Inaugural Re:act program run for Swinburne Communication Design Honours students as an optional project.
Won by Chloe Young for “Live the Moment” campaign.
Topic: “Safer Use of Mobile Phones in Vehicles”.
Re:act run for its second year with Swinburne.
2017
Topic: “Driving the Morning After Drinking”.
Won by Lucy Boehme for “Give Your Liver Longer” campaign.
2018
Now in its third year, Re:act is adopted as a mandatory part of curriculum for Swinburne design students and is run as a group project.
Two new partners come on board: the Australian Trucking Association and Melbourne Metro Rail Authority.
Topic: “Safe Interaction of 18-25 Year Old Road Users With Trucks”.
“Don’t Truck Around” campaign chosen as winner.
Top 3 finalists travel to Canberra to present their campaigns at the Trucking Australia Conference.
Re:act to run outside VIC for the first time, with the launch of Re:act NSW.
2019
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Partner Commitments • Supply relevant data/resources to feed into creative brief (only if available, not mandatory) • Review and input to creative brief • Half day attendance at briefing Q&A meeting (Feb/March, date tbc) • Half day attendance at check-in meeting (March, date tbc) • Half day attendance at pitch day (April, date tbc) • Contribution to fund activation of winning campaign and to help cover hard costs of Re:act RESPOND. ACT. | 13
2016
Safer Use of Mobiles in Vehicles The 2016 brief was to create a safe driving campaign that generated awareness among 18-25 year olds of the dangers of mobile phone use while driving and influence behavioural change. The campaign needed to have strong cut-through and make mobile phone use at the wheel socially unacceptable. As safe driving campaigns are often depicted using harsh and negative imagery, this campaign focused on including the audience rather than isolating them. More Info
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6x
Your risk of crashing
greater if you text while driving
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“
Re:act provides an opportunity to extend knowledge and experience for both the partners and participating Swinburne students. TAC was very impressed with the insights and creative ideas presented by the students and looks forward to working creatively in future Re:act projects.” – Helen Reddan Project Manager Road Safety, Transport Accident Commission
Communication Strategy Comparable campaigns both locally and abroad generally rely on ‘scare tactics’ to convey their message and focus on consequences rather than preventing distracted driving. This seems like an antiquated way to combat the issue and recent campaigns that relate to the audience have an element of fun or humour, so this campaign was to be positioned in the same way. It was important to get to the core of the issue and understand why young people feel the need to use their phone in the car in the first place. It came down to smart phone addiction, so the campaign’s strategy was to speak to the audience’s sense of adventure and encourage young people to ‘live the moment’ away from technology. This would make them feel they don’t need their phone while driving and to only use it at appropriate times. To connect the two ideas into a cohesive statement, the audience showed its commitment by taking a pledge to live the moment and drive safer, thus making it a social movement to be part of.
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Results
150 people signed a pledge card at Swinburne’s Open Day with many of those also taking another pledge card to give to their friends or family who they felt needed it, indicating engagement with the campaign message. • 200 pens and 300 stickers were distributed to students, and the pledge wall and A3 posters remain around campus as an ongoing reminder to students. • The website was visited over 200 times in two weeks with users being referred from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and by directly typing the URL into their browser. • Digital engagement, specifically with the competition, was low however a small percentage of users did share their pledge and involvement with the campaign. Many more took photos of their pledge for personal use.
The overall response was positive and supportive, with many people openly starting conversations about road safety and their experiences. Many who took the pledge were willing to admit they had been unsafe in the past but would take this opportunity to promise to themselves and their friends to be safer as well as take time to live the moment. Graffiti is an inevitable risk with street posters and this risk was made greater with the advent of a ‘fill in the blank’ design that referenced the campaign’s pledge. The A0 posters on the street remained in good condition and one poster had been tagged within the boundaries of the signature space. This shows that even graffiti artists worked within the constraints of the design and consequently took the pledge to be a safer driver.
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2017
The Morning After Alcohol Many of us enjoy a good night out with a few drinks and good company. Heavy drinking and/or drinking late into the night can easily leave you with blood alcohol levels that are too high to drive legally or safely. The 2017 brief was to increase awareness of this risk in the 18-25 year old demographic and create a behaviour of considering an alternative mode of transport the morning after alcohol.
More Info
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1IN5 drivers and motorcycle riders killed in the past 5 years had a BAC above the legal limit of 0.05
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Communication Strategy Due to the little awareness that surrounds driving the morning after drinking, it was important to firstly highlight the issue at hand. This was done by firstly prompting the audience to consider possible scenarios that they may find themselves in, whilst communicating that they may still be over the legal limit. This was done by introducing a strong primary message that resonated strongly with the target audience - ‘give your liver longer.’ Give your liver longer to sober up in the morning, and consequently, you will live longer on our roads. It was important to create a message that resonated with the audience, whilst ensuring they didn’t feel like they were being ‘talked down to,’ or that they were being made to feel like they were in the wrong. This campaign was formed by positioning the audience whereby they could be easily informed of facts to create awareness about driving the morning after drinking.
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Results
“
Re:act is a great program that gives students an important road safety topic to tackle with realworld outcomes. The calibre of entries was extremely high with students passionate on how to make a difference for themselves and their peers. A great aspect of the program is creativity in the approach to road safety which has a distinctive flavour of young people communicating with young people.
The ‘give your liver longer’ campaign was a success, with feedback demonstrating it raised awareness, particularly around the Swinburne area, of the risks of drink driving the morning after drinking.
– Rebekah Smith Education Programs Coordinator, RACV RESPOND. ACT. | 25
2018
Safe Interaction of 18-25 Year Old Road Users With Trucks Representing just 4 per cent of vehicles on Australia’s roads, heavy vehicles are involved in more than 15 per cent of the nation’s road fatalities. Approximately 60 per cent of people killed in heavy truck crashes are light vehicle occupants, and research shows that most of the time these accidents are not the fault of the truck driver. More Info
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The 2018 brief focused on educating 18-25 year old road users on safe interaction with trucks. With the number of trucks on our roads expected to double in the next twenty years, we must ensure young road users are aware of the risks of sharing the road with trucks and change their behaviour to reduce crashes and ‘near misses’.
Approximately
60%
of people killed in heavy truck crashes are light vehicle occupants
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Communication Strategy Our strategy was to create a campaign with a strong educational message. For it to reach our desired audience, we used colloquial language to create our two primary messages. Our first message, ‘It’s Time to Give a Truck,’ revolved around the concept that it is time to care about trucks on the road, and therefore take responsibility for our own safety by educating ourselves about how trucks behave and the risks to be aware of. Our second message, ‘Don’t Truck Around,’ became the face and logo of the campaign, urging our young audience to behave safely around trucks on the road. Focusing on a strong yet witty tone of voice to resonate with our audience, this message highlighted the serious nature of road safety and warned our audience to avoid becoming another statistic by being smarter around trucks.
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Results
“
We believe this is the first time an education campaign about vulnerable road users around trucks has been specifically targeted at the 18-25 year old segment.” – Andrew Hardwick Hard Edge
The ‘Don’t Truck Around’ campaign was a success. Feedback from the Swinburne Open Day was positive and indicated the campaign was educational and a smart way to attract the attention of our young age group. The website received 346 unique visitors resulting in 909 website page views. Our Facebook page reached over 33,000 people in sponsored posts with 310 link clicks. This drove more than 60% of our website traffic. The successful results of the ‘Don’t Truck Around’ campaign raised awareness of being safe around trucks and achieved our campaign goals.
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VIC PARTNERS
NSW PARTNERS
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Press Coverage ABC Radio - Sydney and Perth The Conversation Swinburne Online The Australian Prime Mover Magazine Australasian Transport News Diesel News Mumbrella
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“
It has been wonderful to work with Hard Edge and the partners on Re:act. It is a real world project where students can apply their capacity to evaluate insights and research into targeted, strategic communication design. Over the three years that Re:act has been running, the belief and respect in the students has grown. It is this respect and generosity of spirit from Hard Edge and the partners that motivates the students and creates an environment where they can flourish. – Associate Professor Nicki Wragg Course Director - Communication Design Honours, Swinburne University of Technology
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Want To Be Involved? If your organisation is interested in being part of Re:act, or you’d just like to learn more, we’d love to hear from you. Get Involved
Andrew Hardwick Managing Director - Hard Edge 0417 334 399 ahardwick@hardedge.com.au
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re-act.com.au