1 December, 1995
The Department of Transport is to split its pounds 5 million-a-year
account between Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and the incumbent, D’Arcy
Masius Benton and Bowles.
Cilla Snowball, head of client service at Abbott Mead, said: ’This is a
significant win for us. It gives us the opportunity to produce
advertising to help reduce deaths and accidents.’
Martin Helm, head of information at the DoT, said: ’Abbott Mead
barnstormed on to the scene with some very strong creative proposals on
the danger of speed.’
Snowball, who led the pitch, was picked to run the 80-strong account
management department in June 1984, confirming her position as a key
member of the team around Michael Baulk, chief executive of AMV.
In its first work for the DoT in May 1996, AMV used genuine home-video
footage of child road accident victims. The ads, written by David Hieatt
and Rob Oliver, contrasted camcorder shots of children enjoying
themselves with sombre poems about death by W. H. Auden, Christina
Rossetti and Walter de la Mare.
The ads were made after research among adults which found that speeding
wasn’t regarded as a particularly serious offence.
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