News

Digital signage company, ad agency promote dangers of texting and driving

May 11, 2016

Cieslok Media, a Canadian large-format outdoor advertising company, has joined with Montreal advertising agency john st. to showcase a fake funeral home advertisement promoting "text and drive," according to a press release from Cieslok Media.

The advertisement is located on one of Toronto's busiest throughways, the Gardiner Expressway. The message from the fake funeral home encourages drivers to text and drive with the assumption of increased business for the funeral home. The advertisement is designed to get people to think of the consequences of texting and driving.

"As a leader in large format advertising, we’re all about standing out, being memorable, and captivating audiences, this advertisement does just that for a very important issue — texting and driving," said Jörg Cieslok, president and CEO of Cieslok Media. "With an out-of-home inventory situated in high traffic, high impact locations, it made sense to leverage our digital sign on the Gardiner to amplify this message for the general public good."

The advertisement invites viewers to a website for Wathan Funeral Home. When visiting the website, at first glance it looks like a typical funeral home website, but as the viewer reads the content it becomes clear the messaging is about the impact and consequences of texting and driving. Included in the copy are statistics such as, "We're just trying to get Canadians to stop texting and driving, which is projected to kill more people in Ontario this year than drinking and driving."

"People see and hear the words 'Don't text and drive' almost every day but the number of people doing it keeps going up and up," said Mylene Savoie, managing director of john st., Montreal. "So we wanted to think of a different way of saying it that would make people think about the real consequences. Which is where 'text and drive' came from."