Road Safety Authority - Don't Look Back - (2105) :40 - Ireland

How do you capture the pain of a lifetime spent looking back? How do you show what it would feel like to lose a child in a single moment turning around?

Irish International BBDO did it with a chilling script, Cannes Lion winning director, Martin Stirling, and a haunting, original, score from Gareth Averill.

The Road Safety Authority’s latest ad is an exploration of how a single moment turning to look at a child in the back seat could lead to a lifetime of looking back in regret.

In the ad we see a woman in her seventies wistfully glancing at a photograph of a child who’s no longer with us. We see her at different points in her life, always looking around, in sadness, loss, heartache, all the way back to a crucial moment. The moment when she turned to look at her daughter in the back seat of the car, killing her, by driving headlong into an oncoming vehicle.

The audience is told: Don’t lose a lifetime looking back.

It’s a poignant reminder that one of the most dangerous and distracting things you can carry in your car is also the single most vulnerable – your child. Driving with a child in your car can be 12 times more distracting than when driving with a mobile phone. The most vulnerable person in your car can also present the biggest danger.

It’s a film that will make parents think twice about the stakes at play when they’re distracted by kids in the back. Most importantly it’s an ad that will save precious lives on the road.

Fun fact – although portraying the same person at different ages, the older- and middle-aged women are actually mother and daughter in real life.

Agency: Irish International BBDO
Creative team: Dillon Elliot and Clayton Homer
Executive Creative Director: Dylan Cotter
Account Director: Ken Kerr
Account Manager: David Power
Agency Producer: Gráinne O'Driscoll

Director: Martin Stirling
Production Company: Partizan
Producer: Miranda Johnstone
Music: Gareth Averill