The Department for Transport – Think Campaign
Education and publicity play a key role in raising consumer awareness and acceptance. Road Safety advertising has been a key Government priority for many years. In the past, advertising focussed on specific themes such as drink drive and seat belts. In recent years the Department for Transport has communicated many more messages - such as fatigue and the use of mobile phones. It wanted people to see that these extra individual messages were part of an overall campaign to improve road safety. So in June 2000, it launched a new campaign under one banner - THINK! - to unite various road safety messages.
THINK! works with local authorities and many other partners to deliver its messages through the press, TV, cinema, radio and other media. It has also entered into sports sponsorships with the Rugby Football League and the English Football League to enable it to get messages across to a wider audience using a celebrity based approach.
The THINK! campaign is not about the motorist as such, or pedestrians, or cyclists, motor cyclists, etc. It is about people, about the citizen, about each and all of us. It is about how we all use our roads safely, whether we happen to be motoring, walking, cycling or whatever. This is mainly to build a mood of “we’re all in it together” to have greater effect.