Safety Starts With You campaign
SafeWork NSW ran a mass media campaign called Safety Starts With You.
About the campaign
The campaign was designed to improve safety culture by engaging and activating workers and employers on a mass scale. The primary audience was all workers and employers in NSW.
The campaign focused on raising awareness of workplace risks and encouraging conversation and commitment in NSW workplaces – conversations at work, in the media and on social media.
Campaign strategy
The campaign was a three-year strategy. Over the three years, the campaign encouraged people in NSW workplaces to commit to certain values in their workplaces. Year 1 encouraged commitment to adopting good practice, Year 2 encouraged people to value their own safety and Year 3 encouraged people to watch out for others.
Campaign outcomes
Following the campaign, we conducted research and it was found that awareness of the campaign grew from 21% to 34% over the three-year period.
People who saw the campaign reported that they were very likely to take action with 73% likely to take responsibility for their own safety, 69% likely to stop someone from doing something unsafe at work, 61% likely to seek advice if they were unsure of the safe way of doing something and 53% likely to speak out about safety at their workplace.
SafeWork NSW nominated for a prestigious global award
The International Media Festival for Prevention is an integral part of the World Congress on workplace health and safety (WHS). It takes place every three years and the festival offers an overview of films and multimedia productions about WHS from all over the world.
The Safety Starts with You campaign was one of three shortlisted campaigns from 289 global entries. From an international jury the campaign was shortlisted in the ‘Fatal Attraction’ category, which consists of films that use emotions and tragic events to raise awareness and prevent fatal accidents at work from happening again.
Campaign channels
A range of advertising channels were used to reach a wide audience across television, newspaper, trade journals, outdoor billboards, radio, pop-up ads on desktops and mobile phones when the audience was browsing the internet and social media across Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Instagram.
A dedicated website was available for workers and employers to download free resources.
Safety Promise online tool
The campaign also included an online tool that NSW businesses used to make a public commitment to improve safety in their workplaces.