Community-Based Toolkit for #RoadSafety Campaigns

Road Safety social marketing is one of our specialties at Acart. We’ve developed national campaigns for Transport Canada, York Region Transit, CAA, Beer Canada, Toyota Foundation, and others. Some of our road safety work is done in partnership with Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) — with whom we share a roof in the Acart Building.

TIRF is an international leader in research and knowledge transfer regarding the human causes and effects of road crashes. Earlier this year, we partnered with TIRF, CAA, and Safer Roads Ottawa to develop a toolkit for community groups who want to do their own safety campaigns, but lack the resources to engage professional help.

In a series of collaborative sessions hosted by Safer Roads Ottawa, we took a group of local community groups through a crash course in social marketing theory and strategy, then moderated brainstorming sessions to gather their insights about the issues and psychology of road safety. Participants included Council on Aging of Ottawa, GottaWalk, Green Communities Canada, Walk Ottawa, the MS Society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and Ottawa Public Health.

Together, we discovered what community groups need for effective advocacy: access to research, messaging strategy, social media strategy, stakeholder engagement, and campaign evaluation metrics.

We also developed two print- (or share-) ready sample campaigns that brought ideas generated by the group to life, which are included as digital files in the kit.

Both campaigns were based on the idea that what is needed to improve safety on the roads is for all individual modes — pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers — to commit to a culture of cooperation and mutual respect. With the campaign theme, #SeeEye2Eye, the ads present real traffic statistics with a call for understanding that everyone needs to use the roads with more awareness of the people who share them.

The Community-Based Toolkit for Road Safety Campaigns is available to local groups across Canada. You can learn more about the Toolkit at TIRF’s website.

 

Want to talk about creating a great road safety campaign?

Contact our team today