Romanian mourning mothers highlight drink driving dangers

By Chris Date on Thursday, May 31, 2012

If there’s one thing none of us like, it’s upsetting our mothers! And Publicis Bucharest used this to their advantage with a clever and disruptive campaign for the Romanian Traffic Police to highlight the dangers of drink driving to teens and twentysomethings in Romania.

Under the tagline of ‘Your Last Journey’, they set out to take the funeral to the party by utilising the dramatic departure-from-life ritual that is common at Romanian orthodox funerals. These usually feature widows or old mothers that act as ‘professional cries’, called ‘bocitoare’, with this custom ensuring that no matter what family the deceased is from, they’ll always be properly mourned.

So the agency set out with a team of these professional mourners and took them clubbing with hidden cameras, targeting those leaving venues who looked like they might be about to drive home inebriated. They even replaced the post-club windscreen leaflets with traditional funeral towels, which had the message sewn into them: “If you drink, you’re driving on your last journey”.

The overview and results can be seen in this video. While it’s clear that activity was very localised, with face-to-face interactions limited, the resulting national TV, print and online coverage ensured the idea had longevity and returned well on investment.