Love Ghosting tackled one of New Zealand’s fastest growing road safety issues: phone distraction among young drivers. Research showed 60% of 16–24-year-olds admitted to using their phones behind the wheel, making them four times more likely to crash. The challenge was cultural: Gen Z prioritised constant accessibility to friends over safety.
So New Zealand's leading government safey organisations united to create a cultural change, by flipping “ghosting” - a dreaded Gen Z behaviour - into an act of love, by getting young people to go silent behind the wheel as a meaningful way to protect themselves and the people who matter most.
The campaign was designed to be social-first, using TikTok POVs, creator hacks, memes, vox pops, and OOH at youth hotspots. Content looked native, felt shareable, and embedded itself into culture rather than interrupting it.
Objectives were ambitious: achieve a 30% uplift in self-reported non-use of handheld devices, and shift attitudes so that disconnection became a positive, self-directed choice. Results far exceeded expectations. Within 10 weeks, 82% of young drivers reported ghosting their loved ones while driving, 65% said it made them safer, and campaign content outperformed platform benchmarks, becoming New Zealand's most liked and effective distraction campaign ever.
How we brought Love Ghosting to life:
The challenge was to address a deeply ingrained, dangerous behaviour: 60% of young New Zealanders admitted to using their phones while driving. For Gen Z, constant connection wasn’t optional, it was expected, and habitual. Prior road safety campaigns focused on fear or enforcement, but these hadn’t shifted behaviour at scale. To succeed, we had to change culture, not just communication.
Our plan of action:
Three of New Zealand’s leading safety agencies, NZTA, ACC and NZ Police, united under a single campaign. Together we set clear behavioural and communications objectives: to achieve a 30% uplift in self-reported non-use of phones while driving, and to reframe disconnection as a positive, intentional act. Research with SADD and young drivers revealed the breakthrough: reframing “ghosting,” normally seen as rude, into a love-led choice. By ghosting your mates while driving, you weren’t rejecting them, you were protecting them, and showing them you cared.
Execution:
The campaign was social-first by design.
Content built for platform: 43 unique pieces of content across TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Reels. Formats included POV videos, creator hacks, memes, tech tutorials, and vox pops.
Native execution: The work looked like part of their feed, not an ad. Fast, funny, awkward: exactly what Gen Z engages with.
Contextual placement: OOH screens at schools, unis and stadiums, timed around high-risk driving periods. Social spend was optimised for algorithm favourability, ensuring visibility where and when distraction risk peaked.
Practical tools: How-tos for Do Not Disturb mode, pre-drive playlists and other “ghosting hacks” gave young drivers immediate ways to act.
Challenges and how we overcame them:
Cultural resistance: Ghosting was a loaded, negative concept. By flipping it into an act of care, we turned a social pain point into a social signal of responsibility.
Audience scepticism: Young drivers tune out government PSAs. By making content entertaining, creator-led and platform-native, we earned attention rather than demanded it.
Addictive behaviour: Phones deliver dopamine hits. Instead of framing disconnection as deprivation, we reframed it as empowerment: choosing to care for loved ones over fleeting notifications.
Why it’s unique:
Love Ghosting didn’t mimic culture—it lived in it. We translated a universal road safety truth into a Gen Z behaviour, creating an idea so native it became a movement. The approach was also unique structurally: three government agencies working as one, addressing a problem too big for siloed campaigns.
The result was a cultural and behavioural shift: 82% of young drivers reported ghosting while driving, 65% said it made them safer, and campaign content exceeded engagement benchmarks, making this New Zealand's most successful distraction campaign ever.
New Zealand's most effective distracted driving campaign ever: 82% of 16–24-year-olds reported taking tangible actions to “ghost” while driving, by switching off phones, ignoring messages, or using Do Not Disturb. 65% said the campaign directly made them drive more safely. These numbers not only exceeded the 30% behavioural objective but represented the most significant behavioural shift the transport authority had ever achieved in the distractions space.
Social content smashed platform engagement norms, with video-through rates nearly three times higher than typical government campaigns.
Beyond numbers, the campaign proved something bigger: by reframing a culturally loaded behaviour into an act of love, we sparked a nationwide movement. Love Ghosting didn’t just deliver results: it changed language, culture, and behaviour, with the ultimate aim to save lives on the roads.
