Creating Safer Drivers

South Dakota Office of Highway Safety

Car crashes are the #1 killer of teens. But in a crowded landscape, where teens are bombarded with inauthentic messaging, how do you get them to pay attention to yet another safety plea?

You make it rain with cash, that’s how.

The South Dakota Office of Highway Safety sponsored the “Lesson Learned” sweepstakes to get teens to interact with a safe-driving website for a hefty incentive – $10,000 prize for them and another $10,000 for a school organization of their choice.

Campaign Elements

Peeps Involved

Team Space
Team Steve
Great Plains Motion Picture Co.

Awards

ADDY Award: Silver, Campaign
ADDY Award: Best of Class, Out of Home
ADDY Award: Gold, Out of Home
ADDY Award: Gold, Online Video
Telly Award: Bronze, Online Video
Telly Award: Silver, Long-form Video
ADDY Award: Silver, Cross Platform Campaign

L&S teamed up with the SDOHS to launch and extend the campaign over several years. Efforts have always been rooted in talking with real teens – from producing reality-based, game show style videos featuring games as metaphors for dangerous driving to profiling real safe-driving stories from teens across the state.

We’ve also created interactive games and online quizzes to not only tell teens about the dangers of distracted driving, but to show them how it affects their ability to make judgment and observe details.

Media efforts always kick off in April to piggyback on National Distracted Driving Awareness month. The campaigns use efforts like online video, rich media display banners, social media efforts, disruptive car installations, mirror clings and more to targets new drivers with a safety messages.

Media efforts piggyback on National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.

We’ve also distributed promotional kits to South Dakota high schools with clings, posters, bracelets, locker post-its and assembly ideas to drive students to LessonLearnedSD.com where they can enter for their chance to win $20K.

And for a little added PR buzz, we founded South Dakota’s first statewide Safe Driving Day to coincide with the campaign and remind all motorists to drive safe.

Over the six years we’ve run the campaign, it continues to gain traction with almost 15,000 total entries. In 2022, we increased student sign-ups by nearly 10%. Website users have watched our content and stayed engaged, with the average visit lasting more than six minutes.

Past winners, like Alexa Nelson and Austin Faw, continue to be advocates for highway safety in their teen social circles, proving that an authentic message backed by a smart strategy can help change – and save – lives.