The Michigan Office for Highway Safety Planning (MOHSP) has announced a new program designed to prompt drunk drivers to find a safe ride home. Sound mundane?
You might be surprised.
While the message may not be new, the delivery of the message is, and it’s certainly getting people talking.
The department has distributed….talking urinal cakes…..to members of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association in Wayne County, including the Detroit area. The talking cakes play a recorded message reminding men who step up to the urinals to call a cab or a friend, if needed, to get home safely. Want to see a cake in action? Well, that would be inappropriate. But check out this interview with MOHSP spokesperson extraordinaire Melody Kindraka, who I’m quite sure never anticipated demonstrating a talking urinal cake for the Associated Press.
Kudos to Kindraka and MOHSP! Messaging 101 teaches us to: Say it, say it again, and say it again. But when it comes to “Don’t Drink and Drive,” we’re now 25 plus years into hearing the message, first launched by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in the 1980s. The campaign has been one of, if not the, most successful public service campaigns in history, with DUI rates plummeting for years after MADD took center stage in the DUI fight.
The message still resonates, but finding new ways to get heard above the noise in today’s multi-media world is difficult. According to MOHSP, men are arrested for DUI at three times the rate of women in the state of Michigan. And behavioral research often shows that the difficulty in decision-making–whether to drive or not to drive–often happens after the drinking has started. According to Kindraka, the cakes are designed not just as a reminder, but to generate conversation.
Kudos, Michigan! Long been known as innovators in their use of new solutions, new approaches, and new technologies, we’re not surprised to see Michigan front and center in the talking urinal cake trend. Kindraka was sure to point out that Michigan was not the first state to use “this type of messaging.” But as far as we can tell, they’re the first to deploy it with a publicity campaign that is absolutely generating conversation.
Way to Make a Difference MOHSP!
