Busy people with busy lives tend to prioritise the urgent over the important. But what happens when the important suddenly becomes urgent? Life-threatening even?
Over 60,000 Australians are hospitalised by unintended accidents each year and 46% of Tasmanians say they have witnessed a health emergency in the last twelve months. Yet around one in three people report that they have never had first aid training.
First aid training is never top of anyone’s to-do list, so getting people motivated to learn how to save the lives of others is a big challenge.
A new campaign from St John Ambulance Tasmania is challenging Tasmanians to put first aid before many other priorities to ensure they’re prepared for the unimaginable.
St John Ambulance Tasmania recently collaborated with the advertising agency Showpony Hobart, who created an emotionally charged campaign to highlight the risk of not being prepared.
Creative Director of Showpony, Parris Mesidis said “When it comes to first aid training we all have the best of intentions but too many of us end up relegating it to our ‘to do’ list”.
“It’s kind of incredible and just a little nuts to think that we would prioritise learning potentially lifesaving skills right up there with mowing the lawn or putting away last week's laundry. That's the insight that sits at the heart of this campaign”.
St John Ambulance Tasmania CEO, Andrew Paynter said he was blown away by what he saw when Showpony responded to the brief.
“We wanted something that would really provoke an emotional reaction," he said.
"We wanted something to further support our purpose in making our Tasmanian community safer through first aid. This ad was exactly what we were hoping for.”
St John Ambulance is famous for its volunteers that we see at major events and festivals, so the agency and film production team all volunteered their time to create this commercial.
"We had a lot of young creatives volunteer their time and some who even flew from interstate to make this campaign possible," said Mr Paynter.
"We were blown away by the talent involved in bringing this to life. It was made even more special having our own St John volunteer of over 12 years, Pete Fitzgerald take an on-camera role!
"Normally a production of this scale would be out of reach for a not-for-profit organisation like ours so we’re grateful to all the support that we’ve received from the advertising and media people,” he said.
Showpony Hobart General Manager Claudia Steven, said “Having opened our doors in Tasmania just over a year ago we’re thrilled to be working with St John Tasmania to deliver such an important message. Doing it pro-bono was a small way that we could give something back to the state.
The campaign has launched on free-to-air and on-demand television with supporting social, radio and print components, and a public event to coincide with World Health Day.
It is hoped that Tasmanians will use the campaign as a reminder to move first aid from the to-do list, to the done list.
