In a crash, your vehicle is your last line of defence and safety ratings are the best way of knowing how it is likely to perform.
For instance, you are twice as safe in a 5-star safety rated vehicle than in a 1-star.
Yet research tells us most New Zealand drivers don’t place safety in their top priorities when buying a vehicle and 86 percent of those who own a 1- or 2-star vehicle don’t know or over-estimate its safety rating. Once made aware however, 95 percent said they would purchase a safer vehicle next time.
In New Zealand 1- and 2-star safety rated vehicles, which make up approximately 40 percent of our light vehicle fleet, are over-represented in deaths and serious injuries on our roads.
Based on these insights, we know New Zealand vehicle owners simply aren’t aware of this issue and just how vulnerable they or other roads users are by driving a lower safety rated vehicle.
By raising awareness of the importance of vehicle safety and asking people to check their safety rating via Rightcar, we aim to make safety a higher priority for New Zealanders when choosing a vehicle.
Building on the advertising, we also want people to find out about basic safety checks, driving safely and other things to stay safe our roads, and provide links to pre-purchase tips for anyone who is in a position to buy another vehicle.
This is a campaign aimed at motivating all New Zealanders who own or use a car, SUV, ute or other passenger vehicle to prioritise safety and check their vehicle’s safety rating.
While aimed at a range of current and potential future vehicle owners, a key audience is those looking to buy a vehicle. Reaching them prior to the decision-making point and encouraging them to make safety a priority is an effective way of reducing the number of lower safety-rated vehicles in New Zealand’s fleet.
This campaign introduces the little-known issue of vehicle safety and invites the audience to question how safe their own or a potential future vehicle is.
It uses a range of cardboard vehicles to show just how vulnerable you are in a lower safety-rated car, aiming to shift attitudes towards safety,and make safety rating a priority when choosing a vehicle.
Elements of the campaign also address common misconceptions around what makes a vehicle safe by highlighting the safety rating is what’s critical (not size, cost, comfortable seats etc).
A key objective of this campaign is to encourage people to visit Rightcar to check their safety rating as well as using the website as a tool when purchasing their next vehicle.
The campaign launched on 18 February 2024 with an initial four-week flight. There is advertising running across television, digital video (YouTube and TVNZ+), cinema, outdoor (billboards, street posters and bus shelters), social media, digital display, print and radio.
This new campaign is part of the National Road Safety Promotion Programme, which delivers marketing campaigns and education programmes that support, enable and contribute to reducing harm on New Zealand roads.
The cost to develop and produce our latest public awareness campaign on vehicle safety, ‘Your Last Line of Defence’ is $1.29 million. This includes the production of videos and advertising assets for radio, billboards, social media, website and print channels.
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