No, not a traffic safety campaign or shocking images. But 30,000 children who, encouraged by the local police, took to the streets with yellow mittens to wave to polite motorists. And they went a step further: they asked mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, neighbors and others in Antwerp to be their Street Buddy by signing a charter in which they promise to be more polite in future.

“The traffic safety campaign of 2018 was a huge success,” says Sven Lommaert, Head of Communications Antwerp Police. “108 schools took part, and 28,282 students got the charter signed by Antwerp residents, thus creating 90,000 Street Buddies.”

“The weakest users of our roads became the biggest and especially the most enthusiastic ambassadors,” says Stijn Jacquemyn, creative director at Kunstmaan I Accenture Interactive. “Thanks to them we reached 1 in 5 Antwerp residents in a very personal way. A perfect example of how a creative campaign plays an important role in transforming experiences and a feeling of shared responsibility.”

The Street Buddy campaign would not have been such a success without its young heroes… and their motivated teachers, the Antwerp police, the City of Antwerp, and the team of Kunstmaan I Accenture Interactive.

And because there can never be enough courtesy when it comes to traffic, work has already started on next year’s sequel to create even more Street Buddies.