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The Swim Reaper

Water Safety New Zealand

Issue 42 | March 2017

Agency

FCB New Zealand

Creative Team

Executive Creative Director Tony Clewett Art Director Melina Fiolitakis Senior Copywriter David Shirley Creative Services Director Jenni Doubleday

Production Team

Content Director/ Photographer Michael Braid Head of Design Nick Smith Social Senior Account Manager Laura Holyoake Head of Content Creation Lauren Watling Social Media Campaign Manager Lena Aziz Content Creator Cameron Wilson

Other Credits

General Manager Sean Keaney Account Director Katya Frolova Account Manager Emilie Watts Head of Media – PR, Activation & Social Angela Spain Senior Media Planner Andrew Coulthard Digital Planner/Buyer Desita Anggrani Water Safety NZ Chief Executive Jonty Mills Strategic Partnerships and Communications Manager Sheridan Bruce

Date

December 2016

Background

Young males, 16-24 years-old, disproportionately make up more than one third of preventable drownings in New Zealand. However, traditional safety messaging had proved to be ineffective with this group.

Idea

A lot of drownings could have been prevented if young males had simply made smarter decisions around water. But this cynical audience reacted badly to being told what to do. Positive safety messaging simply didn't resonate with them.

To break through, the idea was to use black comedy and rather than shock the target audience into awareness of the danger, get them to laugh in recognition of their potential foolishness.

The Swim Reaper was a contrary character, darkly funny. As well as appearing in a video on Facebook and in many Instagram posts, he popped up at beaches and swimming holes all over New Zealand, looking to claim as many lives as he could by openly encouraging young people to make bad decisions around water. Of course, in doing so, he ended up pointing out all the pitfalls of stupid behavior, which could, and did, lead to fatalities.

Results

After just three weeks, The Swim Reaper's Instagram account had over 11,000 followers and more than 20,000 likes. He was profiled as a Staff Pick on imgur. com (the home of the internet's most viral images). His photos and videos have had over 1 million views. And there was a 20% decrease in drownings overall and over the peak beach period zero drownings of young men.

Our Thoughts

This is sick. In both senses of the word. If you’re over thirty, it’s so dark it’s on the edge of horrible. If you’re under thirty, it’s really cool.

What’s really interesting is that where most advertising sets out to create an immediate impact, this is osmotic. A steady and continuous drip-drip of satirical comments about the way people behave on the beach – drinking too much, messing around on cheap plastic inflatables, endangering their lives.

Osmosis works. You don’t realise you’ve been turned. It just happens and suddenly, you don’t know why but going for a swim doesn’t seem like such a good idea.

Really sound strategy allied to very funny creative executions equals several lives saved.