New Zealand’s awkward road safety ad about texting while driving

Clemenger BBDO has created an ad for the New Zealand Transport Authority, called Hello. Featuring Lionel Ritchie’s classic song of the same name, the spot shows a series of scenarios involving drivers and passengers.

In each scene, the drivers’ phone rings or bleeps and just before they reach reflexively to check it, the passenger furtively slides their hand, palm-up over the phone resulting in an awkward, slightly creepy hand-hold between the pair. The gag is nicely played out and the ad ends with the tagline: “Put me first. Drive phone free.”

New Zealand-based Clemenger BBDO were behind the Transport Agency’s powerful ad back in 2014 called Mistakes, which won a Yellow Pencil in Writing for Advertising at the D&AD Awards last year.