Ms Sarah O'Connor:

When we are trying to develop a new ad, we hold focus groups with a target audience to try to ensure we understand what is going on. In April, we held focus groups with young men in rural Ireland who had been driving or had their licences for approximately two years, which is the point at which people come off their novice plates. We can see greater risks being taken then because people are confident and believe they are good drivers. Focus groups can be instrumental in that they are insight-driven by the people in them and can inform not just the specific campaign, which was to do with rural speeding in this case, but other work as well. For example, one of the young men said that he knew his local roads so well, he knew what was coming around the corner and did not need to worry. He said he even knew what cars would be on that road. We will have two brand new radio ads this week. One is called “Speed is a serial killer” and the other is about Darren and Jim. Both ads point out that people do not know what is around the corner. The young person’s positivity bias in believing he or she will win the lotto – fair dues to the young person if that happens – extends to not believing he or she will be hurt or hurt someone in a collision.

Down the years, we have learned that messages about serious injury can land more with young men than messages about fatalities. They may feel that is more likely. Over the past 12 months, we have spent a significant money and effort on talking about Ms Imogen Cotter’s ad, which tries to convey what serious injury means. We have reused Ms Siobhán O’Brien’s ad, which had not been used in eight years, to convey the experience of having an acquired brain injury and what that has meant for her and her life. We held a conference on serious injuries last October. This is about building up the messaging.

There is no one intervention or ad that works. It is about the spectrum and having the interventions and ads at the right level for the right audience. Young people think very differently about road safety. They do not necessarily like us being the authority, so we have to find ways to slip into their heads that are slightly different than what would be traditional or normal. They do not want to be given out to, and this is what makes them difficult. Internally in the office, we call them “pistachios”, in that they are hard nuts to find and hard nuts to crack. We spend a great deal of money targeting them and trying to do things differently online to capture their attention. When preparing this morning, for example, I looked at the “30k” campaign. It was interesting. We carried out a wide spectrum of social advertising with that ad. I had to fight hard because there was a funny bit in the ad where the pigeon appeared. Everyone said it was too funny and would not work, but looking at what worked on Meta and TikTok, the ad that young people clicked on and watched through to the very end was the one with the pigeon. There are times when we have to rely on humour or different approaches to our messaging to get it over the line. This has been an important lesson. It involves us being a bit braver and saying it is not only about the scary ad option, but also victim testimonial ads, which are profoundly powerful. Ms Cotter’s ad has really performed, particularly when we have used it during sporting events over the past six or nine weeks to bring home the reality of collision.