The 30 best ads from Campaign Brief’s 30 years. 1999: Office of Road Safety ‘Boys Night’ radio

Campaign Brief WA turns 30 this month, so over the thirty days of June we’re looking back and choosing the best ad done in each of our 30 years.

The year of the Office of Road Safety!

The best ad of the year was a radio spot for ORS called ‘Boys Night’.

Using black humour, 303’s Mike Edmonds wrote a chilling script to illustrate how devastating over the long term drink driving can be. Marty Braine  produced it perfectly to come across like the kind of conversations thousands of blokes have each week. It was Best of Year at the Campaign Brief Awards and won Best of Show and Gold at the PADCs.

Two of the other notable ads from that year were also done for the ORS, both TVCs.

‘Pub Hangover’ was kind of like a TV version of the Boys Night radio. Created by Lindsay Medalia and Ray Van Kempen, it too was very good and picked up a Bronze at AWARD. It must have had an impact because it was withdrawn by the State Government after some intense lobbying from the Australian Hotels Association, which claimed it unfairly implied hotels were to blame for drink driving.

‘Crash’ was by The Brand Agency’s Des Hameister and Craig Buchanan. It showed two guys driving along an outback road when the driver loses control of the car. There’s a spectacular crash and we’re all waiting for the sombre scene of death. Instead, the two guys are momentarily shaken, but then start to laugh at surviving the monumental rollover because they were wearing seat belts. A nice twist on the usual ending of road safety commercials. It won Silver at the PADCs and Bronze at AWARD.

And then there was a ripper little print ad for Retravision. As we have noted earlier in this series, Perth is a retail town so we’re used to a steady stream of ‘typical’ retail advertising. ‘Alarm Clocks’ by MJB&B’s Chris Swift and Steve Rowe was such a refreshing change – witty, intelligent, fun. Not a huge award winner but still memorable.