What we do

Past Campaigns

Child Helmet Wearing Campaign

The Child Helmet Wearing Public Awareness Campaign (PAC II) launched in February 2009, partly in response to fast-spreading misinformation scaring adults off of putting helmets on children. The mission of the PAC II is to increase helmet-use rates and improve traffic safety knowledge throughout Vietnam, to decrease traffic accident fatalities and modify road safety behavior, especially among children and their guardians.

Parents of young children are the primary target audience of the new campaign. Secondary target audiences are grandparents, soon-to-be parents, the media, and the staff of relevant government agencies. PAC II is supported by the Vietnam Helmet Wearing Coalition.

Activities of the Child Helmet Wearing Public Awareness Campaign include:

• “Kids Love Helmets” Photo Contest
• Helmets for Kids school-based road safety education and helmet donation
• Airing of “Rush Hour” TV commercial on VTVs and in Megastar Cineplex
• Mr. Sherriff Cartoon Character Campaign and educational materials
• Newspaper advertisements

Based on third-party review, the PAC II had a 77% penetration rate in Hanoi and 66% in Ho Chi Minh City.

In April of 2007, AIP Foundation launched a 3-phase, National Helmet Wearing Public Awareness Campaign (PAC I) with a coalition of private, public, and government sponsors.  With the support of the National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC) of Vietnam, the Asian Development Bank, AusAID, the Danish Embassy, FIA Foundation, Intel Vietnam, Michelin Asia, the US Embassy, Talisman Vietnam, the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) the campaign strives to increase helmet-use wearing rates and traffic safety knowledge throughout Vietnam in an effort to decrease the country’s horrific number of traffic accident casualties.

Phase I

The campaign – designed by Ogilvy & Mather and perceived as Vietnam’s first international caliber road safety campaign – incorporated an innovative array of media and events that pushed the issue of helmet use to the forefront of public discourse. Its Phase I (April 2007 to October 2007) television commercial “Wear A Helmet. There Are No Excuses.,” incorporated provoking images of road accident survivors and is credited with spurring the Government of Vietnam to accelerate the enactment date of Resolution 32, the country’s new mandatory helmet law.

Phase II

Phase II of the campaign took place from October 2007 to February 2008. The campaign moved from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City into regional centers and emphasized the need for habitual helmet use.  This time period encompassed the December 15th enactment of Resolution 32. During the buildup to the effective date of this landmark legislation, the campaign played an important role in the government’s public awareness and education efforts. Indeed, many of the campaign’s messages and materials were utilized by various agencies within the government for further distribution.  Thanks to these combined efforts, Resolution 32 was an overwhelming success and helmet usage rates nationwide immediately jumped more than 99% on December 15, 2007.

Phase III

Phase III (March 2008 – October 2008) of the PAC rounded out the message of Phase I and II, and responded to the changing dynamics of the road traffic safety public health crisis in Vietnam.  Helmet use rates for children had been dropping because of misinformation about helmets stunting children’s growth, damaging their spines or causing throat injury, which caused many parents to misguidedly put their children in danger by not placing helmets on them - often leading to tragic results. In addition to maintaining helmet use in the general population, Phase III messages and activities were crafted to respond to the demographic divide in helmet-use rates between adults and children.

All three phases of the campaign included a wide variety of events such as free concerts, television commercials, primary school helmet education and child helmet donations, print, online and outdoor advertisements. The campaign’s free outdoor concerts, which included doctor and accident survivor interviews, regularly drew more than 10,000 attendees and attracted tens of millions of viewers during live television broadcasts.
Observational surveys conducted in different cities to measure helmet-wearing rates, as well as quantitative and qualitative studies to measure behavior and awareness change, are essential to the campaign. The Post-Phase III study was conducted in HCMC, Hanoi, and Danang to analyze helmet-usage rates and characteristics, helmet knowledge, campaign effectiveness, and changes in traffic casualties in urban and rural areas. The report was released April 1, 2009 and a report summarizing the entire campaign was released one month later.