It's been a vexing situation for the automobile industry: air bags, originally designed to protect passengers, were found to cause injury and even death to small children who were sitting in the front seat when the air bags opened.
In fact, prior to Chrysler Corp.'s [C] kid-targeted safety campaign, several media outlets were predicting a rate of one to two kid fatalities a week in connection with air bags.
Chrysler's response at the end of December 1996 was to try to get kids to sit in the back seat. Its "The ABC's of Air Bag Safety: The Back Is Where It's At" educational safety campaign set out to educate 30 million children in day care centers, preschools and elementary schools across the U.S., and their parents, about the life-and-death wisdom of buckling up in the back seat of the car.
The message may have been simple, but executing the campaign was definitely not as easy as ABC.
To begin with, Chrysler needed to be able to communicate quickly, in order to prevent more fatalities among children; distill a complex message about air bags into entertaining, kid-friendly language and content directed at kids; actually position sitting in the back as "cool" to kids so they would comply with the safety message; find a way to get the message into every school in the country; and ensure that the message would be credible with parents and teachers.
The auto maker's execution of the campaign is a textbook example of how to do just that.
Chrysler reports 75 million impressions in the day care centers and 182 million impression in schools. It also reached 20 million consumers through placements in USA Today, Associated Press, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, "NBC Nightly News," the "Tonight" show and the AP Radio Network.
Not only did the campaign reach its designated target (through a kit that included a six-page teacher's guide, posters, a video, stickers, suggested classroom activities and take-home safety brochures) but kid fatalities have been reduced since it was first launched.
According to Chrysler, six children have been killed in connection with air bags since the launch of the campaign, compared to the two to three weekly fatalities that had been recorded prior to its launch.
"It's been dramatically reduced," says Barry McCahill, senior counselor, Strat@comm, Inc., the Washington D.C. PR firm that worked closely with Chrysler. "There are still the fatalities but not nearly of the magnitude" prior to the campaign.
Partners Help Build Credibility
Some of Chrysler's most savvy decisions came in its choice of partners.
They hired Lifetime Learning Systems, an educational materials development company in Fairfield, Conn., to create all of the materials that would ultimately be distributed in schools, and Washington, D.C.-based PR firm Strat@comm to coordinate the national distribution of those materials. The PR firm also handled the national publicity for the entire campaign.
Chrysler wisely picked Bill Nye ("the Science Guy") to star in the video and convey the basic message of the campaign. Nye's science show for kids appears on PBS.
"We wanted a video component because kids love video -- it's in their realm of understanding," says Jason Vines, manager, worldwide product and technology public relations for Chrysler. "And we needed someone who could communicate with kids in day care through 5th grade. He was the perfect ambassador -- he took the complexity and made it clear to kids and a little funny, too."
Nye was familiar with the air bag issue and canceled his vacation to make the video, says Vine. Chrysler made 170,000 copies at a cost of $500,000. The video recently won the "Gold Camera Award" for creative excellence in PR issues at the U.S. International Film and Video Festival this past June in Chicago.
Finally, Chrysler enlisted the support of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and AAA - two organizations respected by parents and teachers.
For example, the AAA featured the "The Back is Where It's At" slogan in its "Buckle Up America Week" campaign in May, and will make it a focus of its national kids poster competition this fall.
Other organizations embraced the campaign as well, including the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association of Governors' Highway Safety Representatives and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Chrysler initially sent out a letter and poster about the program in December 1996 to teachers, principals, PTA/PTO presidents and school board presidents, informing them that the material would be forthcoming -- and more than 100 stories ran in print and on TV.
In February 1997, when the program officially kicked off and material was sent out to schools, Chrysler held a press conference in Washington D.C. with Bill Nye, Chrysler chairman Robert Eaton, and the presidents of the AAA and AAP -- all of whom donned cool sunglasses to try to attach a sense of cool to the message. That press conference was spun off in more than 250 TV stories and 40 radio broadcasts -- not to mention the Associated Press photo of Eaton and friends in shades that appeared in print media throughout the country.
Chrysler is currently exploring continuing the campaign in '98. (Jason Vine, Chrysler, 248/512-2694; Barry McCahill, Diane Steed, Ron DeFore, Strat@comm, 202/289-2001)