Drink-driving campaign: would you rather

Drinking and driving continues to be a key road safety issue in Aotearoa being a factor in more than 250 deaths and serious injuries in 2021.

While the message to not drink and drive is widely acknowledged and accepted, drivers are still willing to take the chance and we continue to see alcohol impairment as a significant problem in our crash statistics. This is despite lower alcohol limits, tougher penalties and long-lasting marketing campaigns.

Everyone makes mistakes when driving but alcohol impairment can turn ordinary driving mistakes into serious, sometimes tragic events.

The target audience

This campaign is skewed to a male audience aged 25-35 years, who continue to drive after more than a few drinks. Drivers aged 20 to 35 years of age account for over half of the alcohol-affected drivers in fatal and serious injury crashes, and most of them are male.

They would never drive ‘drunk’ but still get behind the wheel in an impaired state after drinking over the legal limit. We need to shift the attitudes and behaviours of our ‘drink drivers’ so that they see themselves in the same way as they see ‘drunk drivers’.

Our approach

This campaign asks our audience to consider the consequences of drinking and driving, outside of crashing or losing your licence, by showing different personal and social scenarios people could face after being caught drinking and driving. This builds on the traditional approach used in our most recent drink driving campaigns.

In this campaign the focus is on how an individual's decision to drink and then drive impacts those around them and seeks to shift the perceptions and behaviours of New Zealanders who still think it is acceptable to drink then drive.

Explore our tips to help you make the safest choice when planning a night out, from having conversations with your mates, to exploring all the options available to get home safely.

Find out more to keep yourself and others safe, because there's more to lose than your licence

The campaign

The campaign launched on 28 May 2023 with an initial four-week flight. The campaign has a video focus with activity across television, digital video (YouTube and TVNZ+) and in cinemas. It is also supported by radio, outdoor, in-bar, social media and digital activity.

Campaign cost

This new campaign is a part of the wider National Road Safety Promotion Programme, which delivers marketing campaigns and education programmes that support, enable and contribute to Road to Zero outcomes.

The cost to develop and produce our latest public awareness campaign on drink driving, 'Would You Rather’, is $1.23 million. This includes the production of a range of video assets including a 60 second video and four supporting 15 second videos, as well as a range of other assets for radio, out of home, social media, digital and print channels.