Re:act youth road safety campaign launches for 2020

DESPITE the coronavirus pandemic serving as a major preoccupation of young people in Australia, Melbourne-based creative agency Hard Edge launched its 2020 Re:act program this week which aims to raise awareness of road safety issues among 18-25-year-olds.

Highlighting the dangers and risks associated with poor road safety among this cohort, each year a new theme/issue is picked as the epicentre of the program, with distraction being this year’s focus.

Traditionally run in Melbourne and Sydney, 2020 is the first year the campaign is being rolled out in Brisbane as well as being taken overseas, with London set to be the first international destination.

A class of 35 students tuned in electronically via Zoom for the first session in Melbourne on Tuesday in keeping with the increasingly drastic measures being taken to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Launched in 2016, the program forms the basis of a mandatory unit for design students at the Swinburne University of Technology and University of Technology Sydney, while the unit is also being offered to advertising students at Queensland University of Technology and London College of Communication.

Students are tasked with responding to a real-world brief and pitching their solutions to real-world clients before going on to implement them in their community.

According to Re:act founder Andrew Hardwick, the campaign has found some extra traction recently after it was successful in securing government funding courtesy of the Road Safety Awareness and Enablers Fund.

“The involvement of three Australian states and the UK is representative of the growing recognition of Re:act,” he said.

“With further growth of the program anticipated across Australia and overseas, 2020 marks a turning point in Re:act achieving its vision of a positive global impact in the road safety awareness of 18-25-year-olds.”

Sessions in Sydney and Brisbane will start next month, while the UK program was launched during February.