The Department for Transport launched their first national multi-media campaign to raise awareness about the effects of drug driving with ad agency Leo Burnett in August. The eye-popping posters are this week’s pick from It'sNiceThat.
Illustrator: Craig Ward
“It's rare to see any piece of large-scale advertising that's been really exquisitely crafted,‘ says Alex Bec. “Often the focus of big budget jobs for big clients can be on getting a clear message across at the expense of creative freedom. Sometimes this is for good reason, however Think!'s campaign ticks both the clear and creative boxes.”
Research amongst 18-32 year old drug-takers showed attitudes very similar to those of drink drivers in the 1960s. They denied that drugs impaired their driving, and that police could spot or test them. The challenge was to explode these misconceptions.
Drug use often results in an uncontrollable effect on the eyes. Presented with this fact, drug drivers acknowledged checking their eyes for outward signs of use, and understood that police can see the same signs.
Illustrator: Sean Freeman
“The challenge for my team was to bring ‘Your eyes will give you away’ to life in posters. We wanted to do this in a visually arresting and unusual way,’ says Leo Burnett’s Jonathan Burley.
The creative team came across a set of ‘eyescapes’ by the photographer
Rankin, complete with intricate sinews and flaws. This provided inspiration for
the next step. “Different drugs have different effects on the eyes, so we
decided to manipulate the images to get across the individual effects,’ says
Burley.
The team drafted in illustrators to complete the set of eye-popping images, including Sean Freeman worked on ‘Cannabis‘. Each vein in the poster had to be placed individually and be big enough to stand out on the back of a bus, which resulted in many sleepless nights. "In the end I think my eyes were a pretty accurate replica of the cannabis execution,' says Freeman.
Two of the guys behind the work, Sean Freeman and Craig Ward, are among the best illustrators we've come across over the last couple of years. The Think! campaign conveys a pretty serious message in a way that leaves the viewer intrigued rather than detached - which is something only a draftsman (or men in this case!) of real quality could pull off,’ says Will Hudson
TV Commercial - Directed by Ringan Ledwidge.
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