Over the past few years, a specific group has become much more vulnerable in traffic: delivery couriers.
With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, orders in delivery apps have increased substantially, and, due to the financial crisis and to high unemployment rates, the number of couriers has also escalated, especially those without technical training.
Based on all this, Fundación MAPFRE, in partnership with Purpose Brasil, launched the “Grau na Segurança” (Cranking Up Road Safety) campaign, aimed at raising the level of awareness among couriers about the needed actions to be safer in transit. In order to authentically connect with this audience, Purpose has “cranked up” the way of communicating road safety, with a totally innovative approach to the customer.
Challenge
With the advance of the pandemic and the increase in unemployment rates, the number of delivery people rose 40% in São Paulo alone. As a result, we also noticed an increase in traffic accidents involving motorcycle couriers.
While delivery apps are seen as a solution to high unemployment rates, they also pose risks by inducing faster and faster deliveries. This cycle leads to traffic accidents, traffic tickets, poor diet, lack of care with vehicles and death risk.
In addition, when talking about delivery people, we note a huge disparity as for social class, gender and race. Most of them are men (95%) and of these, 67% are black.
This data led us to understand that black men in city peripheries are those most vulnerable to the work system offered by delivery apps and that, therefore, they should be the focus when creating the campaign.
A delivery-person-to-delivery-person campaign
Purpose conducted a research process aimed at understanding how couriers talk about road safety, so we could translate all the campaign messages into the language they use on the streets.
By including couriers and giving them protagonism, we’ve given legitimacy to the messages, amplifying the distribution of the content. As important as the message itself, channels also played an important role. We created a series of audio messages with fun and accessible language they could relate to, which were distributed within WhatsApp groups used by the category – the message app is the most used by delivery people.
Our Theory of Change identifies that by using familiar language to talk about traffic safety, we could get the attention of delivery couriers and, thus, increase their awareness on the subject. Consequently contributing to reducing the number of traffic accidents in Brazil.
The campaign was developed using an accessible language full of references related to the work of couriers. For its launch, we developed the concept video “Grau na Segurança”, providing tips on how to preserve work safety.
We also used Fundación MAPFRE’s social networks to disseminate tips by influencers among couriers. In addition, we wrapped 30 buses in São Paulo with message stickers and distributed 8,000 reflective stickers for use in backpacks in both São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
We had as partner the National Road Safety Observatory (@onsvoficial), and the collaboration of three social media influencers who themselves work as couriers: Jefferson Fernandes, Fabricia Souza, and Gringo Motoka, who disseminated on their social networks and in Whatsapp groups video pills with traffic safety tips.
We had an estimated 420,000 people impacted by the campaign, which was announced in over 50 organic press stories in more than 42 media outlets such as Estadão Conteúdo (From one courier to another: Fundación Mapfre campaign reaches over 6M people with traffic safety tips for those in the streets), IG, Sonho Seguro (Fundación MAPFRE launches traffic safety campaign for delivery couriers), and JRS Digital.
The social media campaign reached more than 11 million people, in addition to the 8,000 delivery drivers, 2,000 driving schools, and 4,000 people interested in the topic reached directly by the campaign messages via WhatsApp.
for Equity & Evidence