Ghost Chips
Client: NZTA (New Zealand Transport Agency)
The Problem: Young Māori men ignore traditional road safety ads. Drink driving messaging full of crashes and consequences makes them switch off, not change behaviour.
The Solution: Stop lecturing. Give them a story they could own - mates looking out for mates, delivered in their cultural language with humour that stuck.
The Impact: NZ's most popular TV ad of all time. Effie Grand Prix. Millions in earned media with zero paid digital spend. Still influencing behaviour and selling merch over a decade later.
The Bigger Picture: Behaviour change campaigns work when people adopt them as their own, not when they're told what to do.
The Thinking
Traditional road safety ads show consequences: crashes, deaths, police. Young Māori men had seen thousands of these ads. They knew the risks. They didn't need more lecturing about what happens when you drink and drive.
The breakthrough was recognising that people don't change behaviour because they understand consequences - they change when their mates expect better of them. We needed to empower the influencers (friends, family) to speak up, not target the behaviour directly.
Rather than trying to replicate contemporary rangatahi culture (which would feel inauthentic and date quickly), we created a fictitious East Coast surf vibe. This gave us creative freedom while staying culturally grounded. The humour wasn't at anyone's expense - it was the kind of banter that happens between mates who genuinely care about each other.
Results
Millions of dollars in earned PR with zero paid digital media
Hundreds of user-generated memes and remixes
Merchandise still selling over a decade later
Became NZ's biggest meme of 2011
Entered the permanent cultural lexicon of New Zealand
What This Teaches Us
When safety messaging becomes part of culture rather than interrupting it, it gains power that lasts for generations. By creating content that young Māori men could own rather than resist, we didn't just create an ad – we created a cultural touchstone that's still influencing behaviour more than a decade later.