Hasta La Creative!

In New Zealand, 84% of all water-related fatalities over the last 10 years involved people not wearing life jackets. Despite campaigning to remind people of wearing their life jackets when on the water, people still go without. FCB and Maritime New Zealand came up with this very targeted idea to change this. This is Water Safety Month, and this idea has helped reduce boating fatalities by 60%.

To help enforce safety, Maritime New Zealand and FCB New Zealand developed the world’s first “Virtual Coast Guard”, an always-on system that patrols more than 9,000 miles of New Zealand’s coastline powered by using geo-fence technology. Knowing that boaters are on their phones capturing photos and checking weather conditions, the virtual system is able to target them through ads on mobile apps and websites to serve them a reminder to wear their life jacket, a warning if danger is imminent based on their location and other important safety messages.