Mates for Life 2023

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Mates for Life 2023

THINK! research shows that 8 in 10 young men agree it is unacceptable to drive over the legal limit and note personal responsibility to intervene, but almost a third say they would feel uncomfortable asking a friend not to drink when they were driving. 

This winter, THINK! is re-launching the Mates for Life campaign to empower friends to intervene if the moment arises with the message ‘A mate doesn’t let a mate drink drive’. 

The campaign leads with the Mates for Life film which illustrates a young man urging his friend not to drink and drive by reminding him of the lifelong friendship and adventures they are yet to have. This follows last winter’s successful campaign which led to 7 in 10 young men taking action as a result of seeing our content, including stopping a friend drinking before driving. 

Our films are running across Instagram, Snapchat, and Reddit with paid promotion. We are supporting these with new paid out of home assets to target our audience closer to the moment of risk. These new beermats and digital posters encourage young men to intervene by listening out for justifications their friends may give for drinking before driving.  

THINK! is once again joining forces with drinks producer Diageo to continue promoting our drink driving campaign messages through Guinness. This year will see THINK! support an exciting initiative from Guinness 0.0% and Greene King pubs to help designated drivers get everyone home safely. At over 470 participating pubs across the country, drivers will be able to show their car keys at the till and get a free Guinness 0.0% to enjoy an alcohol-free option with their mates. You can learn more about this opportunity on the Guinness website.

Their campaign activity will also drive audiences to Diageo’s new ‘Wrong Side of the Road’ tool, which provides an interactive online experience to learn about the consequences of drink driving.  

Follow @THINKgovuk On Twitter, @THINKroadsafety on Facebook and @thinkdriver on Instagram to discover and share more content from the campaign or download at the links below. 

Assets supplied are free to use for educational purposes, however if used in a paid-for capacity (particularly outside of the national campaign period) usage fees may apply. For more information on this, please contact dftpublicity@dft.gov.uk 

To download any of the videos below,  select your chosen video, which will bring up the video player. Click on the ‘Vimeo’ logo in the bottom right of the video player and head to our Vimeo page, where you can download directly. 

THINK! put your phone away

On 1 March 2017, the penalties for using a handheld phone while driving increased. At the time of campaign launch, more than 26k drivers have been issued 6 points on their licence, and 500 new drivers have lost their licence.

THINK! campaign results show that whilst awareness of the penalty increase improved among adult drivers in England & Wales, and the perception of danger and unacceptability of using a phone while driving remained high, one in six still admitted to doing it.

 This could be due to scepticism about getting caught (37% agree that the chance of getting caught is minimal) and individuals not worrying about the consequences of getting caught (48% worry about the impact of getting caught).

This campaign mark the one year anniversary of the penalty increase by highlighting to drivers that using your phone while driving has risk to life and risk to your licence.

The campaign included a re-run of the case study film ‘life without Zoë” to view this campaign material click here .

Pink Kittens

Our new road safety campaign has launched a new ad to drive home the amount of information that is missed by people when they’re looking at their phones.