Pedestrian Council of Australia targets head- phone related injuries in new campaign via DDB
May 1 2012, 10:38 pm | | 40 Comments
The growth of portable music players and mp3-enabled phones has had an unexpected and alarming consequence: headphone related injuries.
Unable to hear the sounds of approaching vehicles, pedestrians are needlessly putting their lives at risk every time they cross the road.
This DDB Sydney campaign for the Pedestrian Council of Australia aims to create awareness of this problem and prompt people to take care when listening to music near traffic.
40 Comments
Although a tad old school, this is rather lovely. DDB is probably doing the best print/outdoor work in Australia right now.
Nice work lads.
The same agency delivered a strikingly similar idea four years ago for the NSW Police Force:
http://creativity-online.com/work/nsw-police-watch-for-cars-when-wearing-headphones/2569
These look like new executions of the same idea. Except this time it’s been legitimized by the pro-bono award-gifting ‘Pedestrian Council’.
Good on DDB for trying to find a home for proactive award-seeking work, but next time how about doing it with a new idea, not one that you gave to someone else a few years back.
finally got it up. good that mark got his name on it.
Ha, nice to see DDB taking over the scam ads from Saatchi’s on this account.
Very familiar to the other stuff did. Did the Police force reject this latest attempt? http://osocio.org/message/nsw_police_department/
Same x 3. Good tho, x 3.
Did the client write the headline?Sounds terribly puny.
Feels old and doesn’t tell me anything i don’t already know …. just a clever visual.
Bench mark for this account is ‘the kill a kid, kill a family’ stuff. If your gonna scam it, do it right.
There’s a real nothing feel to these I’m afraid.
The headphones in the shape of a body chalk death outline idea done a few years back was far better; dead simple visual idea that you get instantly.
A print campaign, for some unknown charity, same idea x3, released a month before cannes. You can almost smell the desperation to win a lion.
Nice one. Gotta love the Grogan and Lena Doppelgangers.
Yawn the entry deadlines been and gone.
Hey Loopy,
First off, it’s not a pun, merely a play on words.
Secondly, it’s quite lean as headlines go, but I wouldn’t call it puny.
It’s also the old ‘same idea x 3’. Had to chuckle how DDB have justified it though; one for males, one for females, and one for androgynous Asians.
Same idea three times, over stylised and way too close to the NSW police campaign from the same agency. next.
Gold
Hey ‘The Pedant’.. perhaps I’m the pedant, but this headline is a pun by any definition. It’s words with two meanings.. in this case ‘tune out’ (die) and ‘tune out’ (as one does when you turn off a radio)… there’s even a third relating to ‘playing a tune’, but that’s just being pedantic.
Everything’s been done, whatever. Good work is good work and I like it. Well done all.
NSW Police haven’t been with DDB for years. Maybe that’s why its for a different client. Perhaps it was even meant to be the second set in a series. NO WHAT LOGIC GET OUT OF HERE.
hello 9.46, i think you meant to say ‘old.’
Same thing 3 times. Should have stopped at the first execution.
Me hate DDB.
Me love these.
I’m a walking contradiction.
DDB staffers this would have got on the wall at AWARD school if you minus the stinking pun and wasnt just 3 versions of the same execution
The old one was a lot better.
Over stylised. Way too over stylised.
It has a typographer credited on it. So why doesn’t he know what an apostrophe is as opposed to the foot mark used in the headline?
Perfect ads used to win awards years ago.
Y’all need to bone up on what a pun is. A pun relies a word that sounds the same but has two different meanings.
This is a pun: What fish has perfect pitch? A piano tuna.*
This is not a pun: Don’t tune out.
*Yes, I made this up. Thank me later.
Buy a Dictionary.. if ever one should follow their own advice! That’s just flat out wrong.
Any dictionary will tell you that puns can be: a) the use of a word or phrase so as to emphasise its different meanings or
b) two words that sound alike with different meanings.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pun?s=t
This headline absolutely IS a pun. No question.
@Buy a dictionary. A pun is a play on words. This headline, therefore, is a pun.
The line is undoubtedly a pun. But that doesn’t make it bad. It’s short enough to work in outdoor and says what it needs to elegantly. Plus, the image is kick ass. So in my book I reckon it’s a bloody good campaign. Well done Ddbitches.
@Even more pedantic:
I see your dictionary.com and raise you an Oxford:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pun
The important distinction here is that a pun is a joke. This headline is not all that jocular.
@Bought a Dictionary:
A pun is more than just a play on words. You are a play on words. Buy another dictionary.
@Maya Angelou:
Still don’t think it’s a pun, but I don’t care much anyway. Just frittering away Tuesday. I agree the image is kick ass, although I still prefer the word arse. It’s more bawdy. And this is a good ad, although it’s not a true campaign. It’s a swapsie.
@Buy a Dictionary.. now you’ve just changed your argument!
Even your own Oxford reference is at odds with your original argument, which I’m sure was “A pun relies a word (sic) that sounds the same” – you even bolded ‘sounds’.
Now it must be funny? I think ‘funny’ is a term very loosely applied to puns.
Anyway.. whatever. If you want someone to admit they’re wrong, the internet is definitely the wrong place. Especially when you’re arguing with the person who obviously wrote the ad in the first place.
yep, done for the cops about a year and a half, possibly 2 ago when harricks was around, but now wheeled out for road safety.
never ran when it was a pro-bono brief for the cops.
oh well, good on them for getting an old idea up i suppose.
recycled ideas anyone?
So what if it’s a pun?
@Even more pedantic:
Who’s arguing? This is just an afternoon squabble. Thanks for picking up that typo by the way, bit embarrassing. As for changing my argument, not that this is one, I’m totally fine with it. I found a better one.
I don’t think funny is a thing loosely applied to puns. I think it is a critically important part of punning. A lot of headlines can be read in two different ways, and that’s something copywriters like to feel smug about. But a headline that can mean two equally clever things doesn’t automatically make it a pun.
Besides, I’m not wanting you to admit you’re wrong. You can just be wrong without having to admit a thing. I’m cool with that. But you are correct on one point. I did embolden the word ‘sounds’.
Nice ad, incidentally.
We should totally start a ‘Semantics Smackdown’ wrestling syndicate.
I agree with the definition of pun as argued by ‘buy a dictionary’, hence my original comment. Since then, I too have been online and found definitions that support both arguments.
I put this down to further erosion of the English language – when I was a copywriter in short pants there was a difference between ‘a play on words’ and and ‘a pun’.
Apparently, not anymore.
But then again I never understood what ‘a visual pun’ was either.
I loved it the first time. Not so sure about this time around. Sorry Alex :-(.
Puns aren’t meant to be ‘funny’ they’re meant to be witty – there’s a difference.
Used properly they can make the writer or speaker seem incredibly deft at word play – Dorothy Parker being a notable exponent of that art.
Google her.
Generally speaking puns are the use of one word to connect or reference a couple (usually) of other separate notions to create one neat point.
Some are great, some are groaning – these days most make one wince.
However, just because this one isn’t witty, it’s still very much a pun.
Now go back to your banner ads.
You must be joking, this will not win awards. Dull and been done better.
Will it win an award? Maybe.
More importantly, will it stop one person from getting skittled when they cross the road? Maybe.
Move along.
Where can i get those red earphones?
Like the idea.
Lose the written-by-government-committee headline.