WASHINGTON: The Academy for Educational Development has won a dollars 3 million contract from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to publicize its Buckle Up America campaign.
WASHINGTON: The Academy for Educational Development has won a dollars 3 million contract from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to publicize its Buckle Up America campaign.
Names of competing firms were not revealed.
AED administers social marketing programs and has often worked with PR firms as partners in such campaigns. However, this time AED will be executing not just the strategic positioning but also the media placement activities in-house.
The contract also calls for staging national media events and developing PSAs. AED will be managing its own research with a partner firm, and it will be using NHTSA research to determine how to better encourage automobile safety.
'We'll be looking at why seat belt use has plateaued here when in other developed countries it is much higher,' said Mary Maguire, AED director of communications.
Right now, US seat belt use stands at 70%. But AED will be aiming to boost that to 85% during the next five years.
Rather than just aim at a broad audience, AED will zero in at specific target audiences. 'We know pickup drivers are less likely to wear seat belts,' explained Maguire.
But AED would like to better understand the 15% who are not buckling up, the reasons why they are not and how to persuade them to do so.
