Texting and driving can wait.
Teens are addicted to the buzz, the vibration, THE DING. Research told us that 97% of them are aware of the extreme danger of using their phones while behind the wheel, but they still continue that deadly behavior. For them, FOMO outweighs the fear of dying while driving. To break this addictive behavior, we needed an antidote. So, for AT&T's It Can Wait corporate initiative in 2014, we gave teens a simple text shorthand, signifying to friends and family that they’re about to drive and can’t respond: #X
To educate our teen audience about #X, we leveraged celebrities like Demi Lovato, Shaun White and R5, who we knew they would listen to. Broadcast and digital PSA’s in their voice spoke more directly to teens. We expanded our reach by bringing in YouTube influencers, popular Viners and content creators. Then we turned it over to teens and let their peers and their friends to get involved in their own way. Twitter became our loudest voice with teens sharing how they use #X, #X Gifs and #X Driver’s-side selfies. We even pitted high schools against each other in a nationwide Twitter-battle.
By spanning digital, social, and even broadcast; by taking the conversation to where the teens were, the program was successful in a way that's all too rare these days: it actually saved lives. Research concluded that the campaign was responsible for saving the lives of approximately 15,000 teens.
