OVK | LET IT RING | 2009
The moment it arrives, you cause the accident / OVK "LET IT RING"
While you're watching a video, your own phone rings. Answer it, and the car on screen crashes. The viewer, without realizing it, has just become the subject of an experiment.
The problem
OVK, an organization of parents who had lost children to traffic accidents, faced the challenge of how to communicate the reality that using a phone while driving causes accidents. It was a time when simply warning people with words wasn't getting through.
The insight
Rather than lecturing people about danger, actually making them do it hits much harder. Just by sending a URL to a friend, the person who receives it becomes the unwitting star of the video. They don't realize the trick until their phone actually rings.
The idea
The mechanism was simple. You'd enter a friend's phone number and email address on the site and send it, and your friend would receive a link that looked like an ordinary viral video. When they played it, they'd see footage of a car driving from the driver's point of view—and partway through, their own phone would really start ringing. If they answered, the car on screen would crash. By syncing a real incoming call with the driving footage, the boundary between what's on screen and what's real was broken. If you don't answer, there's no crash—and that choice itself becomes the message.
What happened
At the 2009 Cannes Lions, it won Gold in the Promo and Direct categories and Silver in Media. It also won Gold at Eurobest that same year.
Afterthought
The idea of making people actually experience "don't look at your phone while driving" by literally making their phone ring is brilliant. The way viewers become unwitting test subjects feels remarkably ahead of its time for 2009. Don't answer, and you're safe. Answer, and you crash—that tension is genuinely frightening.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2009
