Diana and the Seat Belt

           The discussion on the appropriateness and value of using Princess Diana’s image in road safety seat belt campaigns draws on aspects of social marketing to determine the effectiveness of each advertisement style that was used to appeal to the public.  The three forms of communication, as represented by three alternative ads, were narrowed down to information based, sympathy based, and shock based.  While any advertisement that explored the event of Diana’s death was controversial at some level, it seems the “sympathy-based” ads would be most effective given the public’s relationship to Diana and perception of the incident.

A main issue that Dr. Susan Dann and Stephen Dann point out in their article is “how can a person for whom the cause failed be used as the celebrity endorser” for the road safety campaigns? (303) The ads would have to appeal to both the audience’s admiration for the celebrity and their recognition of the celebrity’s irresponsible behavior.  The ad that communicates emotionally with the audience, namely “A life led by example,” achieves this most effectively because it presents Diana’s image in the most reverent way, while still recalling the tragedy.

The purely informational “Seat belts might have saved them” fails to appeal to the public’s love of the celebrity by being overly-cautious and replacing a picture of Diana with the car at the site of the crash.  The connection between celebrity and tragedy is not powerful enough in this case.  “Three out of four people agree,” on the other hand, is an ad that applies an inappropriate level of shock-value given the controversy surrounding the use of Diana’s image in the campaign.  For a public that was more than 30% opposed to the idea in the first place, an ad that condemns the judgment of the celebrity (rightfully or otherwise) could not have been well received.

The issue remains in the fact that the intent of the campaign is to “change individual action to achieve social benefits”.  The benefit in this case is public safety, which is different from advertisement campaigns that try to persuade an audience to buy a product.  Therefore, the sponsoring institution need not appear friendly as long as it is credible.  Although it may be offensive, the content of the “Three out of four” ad is difficult to deny and the ultimate goal, “change” can still be achieved.  The question is, would the ad be objectionable enough that its effectiveness among the public would be damaged?  If not, the matter is simply ethical, reflecting the responsibility of the road safety campaign to maintain its integrity by showing due respect to Diana and her admirers.  With greater integrity the campaign is more likely to gain support.

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