CT DOT: "Click it or Ticket" – Life Saving Media Strategies

Submitted by ckwebacct on Tue, 2011-07-12 11:14
The Challenge: 

Cashman + Katz was handed a huge challenge heading into the spring of 2004, Connecticut residents had a seatbelt usage rate of 78%, while the national average was 79%. But is was only a 1% difference, meaning that Connecticut was at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal funding unless the State’s compliance rate was increased to that of the national average. In the previous three years, as part of its “Click It or Ticket” seatbelt safety campaign, the CT DOT ran television and radio commercials that attempted to reach all motorists in the state in an effort to convince as many residents to comply with the law as possible. The results of those “shotgunned” campaigns led to mediocre results...and the threat of lost Federal funds.

The Approach: 

While the DOT had historically targeted all motorists in Connecticut with their campaign, research indicated that people from many age groups already complied with the law at a rate of 80% or more. Yet, for young men, the compliance rate hovered around only 50%. Targeting this particular group offered the highest opportunity for improvement and, as a result, the greatest likelihood for raising the overall compliance rate. Therefore, young men became the primary target audience for the campaign.

The media buy was adjusted to focus on this new audience, as well. Cashman + Katz continued our strong performance of delivering tremendous value as we negotiated for, and received, a one-for-one spot match (one no cost spot for each paid spot) on all television and radio schedules – doubling the delivery of the media budget. To ensure that the campaign messages were credible, Cashman + Katz also put forth a full force public relations blitz.

Advisories alerting local media to seatbelt checkpoints resulted in press coverage; a statewide media speaking tour featuring the president of the Police Chiefs’ Association and a representative from the State Police provided a forum to discuss the need to comply with the law; and local law enforcement officers were educated on how to generate interest from their local media outlets.

The Results: 

Cashman + Katz has now had the “Click It or Ticket” campaign for 5 years and the results are staggering. The CT DOT has now raised their compliance level from 78% in 2004 to 89% currently. This puts the CT DOT as number 1 in New England and in the top ten in the nation in compliance.

The results showed that the campaign was enormously successful. Independent auditors confirmed that Connecticut motorists increased their compliance rate from 78% to 83% - a full five point increase! Furthermore, CT’s compliance is now above the national average, which had risen to 80%.

This is impressive considering that motorists’ seatbelt non-compliance habits are particularly deep-rooted, and our campaign was asking them to change those habits with a short six-week campaign. The creative messages resonated with the target. The media schedule provided effective message delivery. And the public relations effort delivered outstanding coverage of the seatbelt safety program, providing 165 newspaper articles, 38 television news stories and 13 on-air radio interviews over the course of the campaign.