👆 This is the oh-so Aussie tagline for another of Australia's most influential and successful ad campaigns ever.
By the late 1980s, the number of road fatalities in Australia was in the thousands annually, the main cause being accidents attributed to the then common practice of 'drink driving' ('drunk driving' in North America). Something drastic had to be done to counter this, so in 1989 the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) of the Australian state of Victoria commissioned Greg Harper and Stewart Byfield to make a hard-hitting ad that would "upset, outrage and appal" drink drivers.
The result was 'Girlfriend', a powerful ad showing the grim reality of drink driving and its tragic consequences.
Shot at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in the middle of an active emergency department using a real medical crew, it depicts an injured young woman taken through the emergency ward following a car accident caused by her alcohol-affected boyfriend.
"It was all just allowed to happen: screaming, trauma, the lot" said Harper. "All who looked at it (including research groups) were genuinely upset."
🎯 The ad was an immediate sensation in Australia and its impact was as intended – Australia's road toll dropped by 37 per cent in the following 12 months! And the tagline, using typical Aussie speech, immediately entered the vernacular. 36 years later and it's still very familiar to most Aussies.
'Girlfriend' was the first in decades of extremely graphic, warts-and-all road accident ads by transport commissions throughout Australia, and was an approach so successful that it was emulated worldwide, such as this ad over the ditch in New Zealand.
🥇 In 1998, one of the TAC spots won Greg Harper Best of Show at The One Show, the first Australian ad to take top prize at this prestigious international show.
During this Holiday period, remember: if you drink, then drive, then you're a bloody idiot!
Stay safe!
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