just like that

This was the biggest opportunity for my small new agency to-date. Within our first twelve months.

A government tender, the biggest going in Tasmania, and we were up against established large agencies, even national agencies.

There had been excellent research undertaken, and we attended the briefing on the findings. This was held in a large auditorium with every agency interested in the tender present. It was quite daunting.

The research showed that previous campaigns had not been reaching young people or rural people – demographics highly over-represented in the crash statistics at a time of terrible tragedy, when all the road safety numbers were going in the wrong direction. The next campaign had to address a lack of engagement with these two groups in particular.

All agencies were given this research to prepare from. Then a shortlist would be chosen to competitively pitch before someone was awarded the account.

You can imagine what it felt like, sitting in that room. There were delegations from other agencies that outnumbered our whole office of five people.

But we threw ourselves into it. We went through every page of the research document so many times and so thoroughly I could recite key passages by rote. We wanted to get truly clear about what the brief was really about, and we gave it everything we had.

Now – my mum was visiting soon from Melbourne. A few days with us in our new home, our new state, seeing her young grandkids. Could I really afford that time, given my focus on the new business and this tender opportunity? No, I couldn't. But I'd devoted the Sunday afternoon especially to go on a road trip with Mum out of Hobart, just the two of us, to show her some of the sights. And somewhere in my head, I was still thinking about the tender.

Mum has always been such a great supporter and interested in what I do. We were in the car, just coming back into Hobart, when she asked, "Have you got any big projects coming up, love?"

I started sharing with her about this opportunity – the magnitude of the tender, the background research on those demographics. How we felt that young people can't be told 'don't do something' and that it's a rite of passage to take risks. Also for rural people who'd been driving in paddocks since they were kids... I said how we needed to somehow tell them that things can go wrong just like that.

I said those words to Mum in the car and caught myself saying them.

We weren't far from home. As soon as we arrived I raced upstairs to my little office, pulled out my pad and pen, and wrote:

Just like that

Dead just like that
Wreck your life just like that

Lose your licence just like that

$110 fine just like that

Hit a booze bus just like that

I looked at those handwritten lines and said out loud to myself, "We've won this!"

And we did.

That campaign remains one of the most valuable case studies of my agency's journey. It broke all records. It was used by other states. It set us up for the next fifteen years, brought us global business, and – most importantly – it saved lives. Road crashes reduced by 25%. The first-ever fatality-free Christmas. And many other firsts, over many years.

All thanks to that conversation with Mum on a Sunday afternoon drive.

In Creating your Story I unpack exactly why this worked – and how you can put yourself in the pathway of the same kind of thinking.

Here's the link to that course information →