Corporate Sponsorship Campaign

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

Impaired driving and occupant protection continue to be significant priorities for traffic safety in Indiana. Young males are particularly over-represented in impaired driving crashes, fatalities, injuries and arrests and have the lowest seat belt use rate of any demographic designation.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The main goal of Operation Pull Over is to reduce deaths and injuries as a result of traffic crashes while increasing seat belt use statewide. The objectives of the corporate sponsorship project are as follows:

• Secure corporate support and sponsorship for each quarter of the program
• Produce materials in partnership with the sponsor that couple traffic safety messages with incentives
• Saturate the quarterly target audiences with produced materials.

STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES

To reach the target population of young males (with a secondary focus on all Indiana residents), four blitzes/campaigns are developed each year. The campaigns require considerable resources. To achieve maximum saturation, new sponsors must be retained each quarter. Additionally, it is a challenge to create a message that is appealing to the target audience.

Each campaign has a separate look and message. For each campaign, the following are developed: materials (posters, rack cards, brochures, payroll stuffers), radio and print PSAs, an ad slick, a planner (sent to each law enforcement agency), and a catalog of all the printed materials (sent to groups involved in that campaign). To implement each campaign, the following must occur:

• Retain a public relations/advertising agency to help secure sponsorships and produce creative collateral materials
• Develop partnerships with sponsors, emphasizing both the intrinsic value of the project and the advertising worth of reaching a large audience with sponsored materials
• Produce materials each quarter for the general public and participating law enforcement agencies
• Disseminate materials to appropriate points, based on the focus and the corporate sponsor for that quarter.

RESULTS

Sponsors give coupons for goods and services, as well as advertising for the campaign (e.g., pump toppers at gas stations and ads on bags of ice). The value of this in-kind donation for an 18-month period is estimated at $1,155,00. Sponsors include:

Signature Inns	CoCo Wheats	Papa John's Pizza
Subway	Shell Gas	Jiffy Lube Oil Company
Indiana State Fair

At least 299,000 pieces of print material were produced with a traffic safety message and corporate sponsorship. Because of the diversity of distribution points, it is reasonable to estimate that this many Indiana residents were reached by these pieces. These partnerships are mutually beneficial because they provide marketing opportunities for a corporation while, at the same time, presenting a traffic safety message in a format that appeals to the given audience. The sponsor and the campaign benefit, and the citizen gets valuable information and product discounts.

In 1990, seat belt use in the state was at 40.1 percent; in 1993, it was 48.6 percent. By 1996, the seat belt use rate had risen to 55.8 percent. There had been a continual increase in seat belt use in five consecutive surveys.