Company: Allstate Foundation
Agency: Weber Shandwick and Street Factory Media
Timeframe: 2005-present
What's the #1 killer of teens in the U.S.? According to the Center for Disease Control, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, it's
reckless driving resulting in car crashes, which claim an average of 6,000 fatalities a year, injuring at least 300,000. To pioneer a new way of handling this problem, the Allstate Foundation, the
independent charitable organization that's a subsidiary of its parent company Allstate Corporation, teamed up with Weber Shandwick to launch a new teen-led movement to educate the nation's youth on
the importance of safe driving.
The Allstate Foundation zeroed in on the issue of teen driving back in 2004 following a lengthy review of various issues they felt affected the community at large. According to Sue Duchak, program
director of Allstate Foundation's "Keep The Drive" program, what made the team pay special attention to the issue of teen driving was its disturbing fatality statistics.
Wanting to explore this issue at greater and more detailed length, the Foundation hired Weber Shandwick. "We had been working with the agency on other issues and we were aware of the fact that the
Weber Shandwick office in Minneapolis has done a lot of work on teen-driven programs," says Duchak.
Finding The Right Partners
To augment their expertise, Weber Shandwick brought another partner, Street Factory Media - a local firm that specializes in guerilla marketing - to the project. SFM's collaborative work with
Weber Shandwick on campaigns involving teens, such as Target Market, aimed at reducing smoking among young people, made them a natural fit for the program.
"They have young people who have always been involved in social issues," says Kelly Puspoki, director of consumer marketing practice for Weber Shandwick, Minneapolis. "With their past experience
training young people to be activists, they brought a lot of value to the table. We worked with them to be our trainers [and train the teens to be leaders in their communities] for our national
summit."
Trial And Error
As with the execution of any potentially large-scale event involving a mammoth scope of resources and manpower, it was necessary to create a preliminary trial where team leaders and participating
teens could learn and subsequently use that experience and knowledge as the launching pad for what would later be the real thing. So, in the fall of 2005, Allstate Foundation and Weber Shandwick held
their first teen-driving summit in Los Angeles, where both company and agency sought to lead a national study on teen driving attitudes and behaviors among 1,000 teens. At this event, teens discussed
the importance of raising awareness for the need of safer driving while educating their peers on this issue.
Following the event, the insights and feedback collected from the original participants, combined with information garnered from surveys, e-mails and conference calls throughout the year, gave
birth to a new, nationwide, teen-led, grassroots movement called Keep The Drive (keepthedrive.com). The primary purpose was to enable teens to take on their #1 killer via an event that would unite
teen leaders. Other objectives were to increase visibility of the issue while positioning the Keep the Drive movement as a new solution to an old problem and engage parents as advocates for smart
driving.
The target audiences for Keep The Drive were:
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Tweens and teens;
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Parents; and,
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National teen media.
"The 2005 event was really about getting teen input into the program," Duchak explains. "The best way to [harness the power of peer influence] is by tapping the overlooked authority--teens
themselves. Realizing that none of us are teens, we knew we had to get information somewhere so we decided to pull together about 45 to 50 teens across the country. We called them our Drive Crew and
asked them questions as to what they would like to see in a teen-to-teen smart driving movement."
Duchak's team spent the rest of 2005 and 2006 coming up with the program, developing
the Web site (http://www.teendrive.com)
and every element on it. They built a group of teen advisors to make sure they
felt their voice was a compelling element.
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Recruiting teens to be on the Drive Crew was a key challenge, but it was easily met by the project team. "We recruited teens from a variety of channels in 2006," notes Duchak. "We worked with our
Foundation national partners--Boys and Girls Clubs of America, National Urban League and National Council of La Raza--to recruit teen leaders. We also worked with other national organizations like
SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions), and Key Club [a high school organization that promotes community service]."
With a group as arguably attention-deficient as teenagers, how do you make such a loaded issue palatable to them? Believe it or not, that wasn't too difficult, according to Puspoki. "We wanted to
position the issue of smart driving as cool and socially acceptable to them," she points out. "This is an issue of safety, but how do you make it interesting? There's not one type of teen that can't
be typecast, and they're a fickle audience."
Having teens lead and galvanize this movement (while under the guidance of adults) was an attractive lure to many young people who became part of the Drive Crew. "It was important to make sure
they have a strong say in what happens," notes Puspoki. "At the summit, the teens had plenty of opportunities to speak up and share their own stories. That helps drive this issue home. Most of these
teens have been touched by this. So giving them a voice to talk about it really personalizes the issue."
Driving It Home
To kick things off, 46 teen leaders were culled from various markets to be part of the National Keep the Drive Crew team. Their job was to mobilize the movement while acting as activists within
their respective communities. All were trained to lead group sessions and educate other teens and their target audiences with toolkits that contained information on the importance of safer driving
among teens.
During the weekend in Chicago, the teens, joined by MTV veejay Quddus, learned what it took to be an activist on this issue. "Quddus added value because of the borrowed equity we could take from
MTV," maintains Puspoki. "The teens really responded to him because he was smart and cool."
After hearing disturbing statistics and stories surrounding car crashes, the Drive Crew team was coached on how to reach out to the media and how to grow the movement in their own communities.
They also brainstormed ways to build awareness online via social networks, video-sharing sites and instant messaging.
New Kids On The Block
Following this intensive discussion, the next phase of the campaign commenced: the team hit the streets. Decked out in Grim Reaper costumes (representing their #1 killer) and toting bullhorns and
picket signs with messages such as "16 a Day - Reverse It. Check out KeeptheDrive.Com," the crew generated abundant attention. They also talked with other youths and adults about smart driving while
distributing nearly 1,500 branded items to promote KeeptheDrive.com.
The Chicago Keep The Drive U.S.A. summit served as the official kick-off of the 46 teens' one-year term as movement leaders for the National Keep the Drive Crew. Before the summit ended, the teens
consolidated their involvement by signing up for committees that included media relations, special events, grassroots activism, Web or local Drive Crew chapters.
Parents were also invited to the summit but held their own sessions apart from the teen-led ones. There they learned about statistics and trends surrounding teen driving. Parents also heard from
other parents who lost children to car crashes. Many discussed ways they could influence other parents and teens to ensure smart driving.
To raise awareness of the issue of smart driving during the summit, Weber Shandwick, in tandem with Allstate Foundation, sought to engage the media by inviting editors to interact one-on-one with
teen attendees; leveraged online media such as blogs and podcasts; highlighted MTV veejay Quddus' involvement; and positioned KeeptheDrive.com as a teen resource.
Among the findings in a post-summit survey of the Drive Crew teens were:
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95% said they were excited about what they could do to reverse the teen driving stats;
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95% planned to use their activism toolkits; and
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Nine out of 10 said they knew what was expected of them as a member of the Drive Crew team.
The return on investment was far-reaching. Nearly 16 million impressions via 26 national and local media outlets were secured. Highlights of coverage included MTV's "TRL Weekend Countdown," Teen
Vogue, Miami Times, Teen Scene, Chicago Tribune, and the Oregonian.
Outreach to the Drive Crew following the 2006 summit showed active engagement: 27 of 46 Drive Crew members reported executing a total of more than 50 Keep the Drive activities; and Drive Crew
members have participated in more than 20 post-summit media interviews. PRN
CONTACTS:
Sue Duchak, [email protected]; Kelly Puspoki, [email protected]
Who Do You Trust?
With the touchy state of trust these days, communications professionals face additional challenges in reaching their target audiences and having impact without being met with skepticism. In the
case of Weber Shandwick and the Allstate Foundation, the PR team had an even more daunting task: Reach teens, a traditionally elusive and skeptical audience, and convince them that driving safely
really is cool. So how did they connect with them?
For starters, they took statistics from the Edelman Trust Barometer to heart, acknowledging that 68% of people trust "a person like yourself or a peer" above anyone else. They acted accordingly,
commissioning teens themselves to do the dirty work. Then, they followed these best practices to drive their message home:
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Pass the test: "Know and test market your audience," says Kelly Puspoki of Weber Shandwick. Doing so allows you to adjust strategies before rolling out the entire initiative, and it's
especially important with audiences as fickle as teenagers.
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Be part of the conversation: "Make sure you understand the public conversation around the issue you're interested in exploring," Puspoki says. In the case of their target audience, the team
took a grassroots, guerilla marketing approach, knowing that teens would better identify with something scrappy versus something formal. They also used digital communications channels to supplement
the in-person events.
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Be a matchmaker: Even with the help of behemoth firm Weber Shandwick, the team knew that an additional partnership would be required, especially one that had experience with reaching the
target audience. That's where Street Factory Media came in. "Align yourself with experts on the issue and use focus groups to flesh it out," says Puspoki.