Besides being known for its beautiful cities with coastal views, the South-eastern Australian state, New South Wales, is also notable for the multiple accidents related to water sports. According to Huffington Post Australia, since 10 December 2016, 22 people have lost their lives in a drowning accident in NSW. Surf Life Saving Australia — a non-profit group with almost 170.000 members and over 12.500 rescues annually, dedicated to take down the rates of costal drowning by 50% by 2020 — was founded in order to reduce the number of these dramatic situations, which now can be seen as an epidemic that has hit Australia in the recent years.

To prevent such tragic events from happening again, the Surf Life Saving charity (SLS) got in touch with UK’s largest Out-of-Home advertising company, JCDecaux — known for its unique bus-stop advertising systems and various kinds of billboards – and launched “Be a Lifesaver” campaign, which encourages people to donate and support surf life saving in a fun, exclusive way: with an innovative, and cutting-edge panel which attracts people to play an attractive ‘arcade-style’ game.

Installed at a bus-stop in Campbell Parade, by the legendary Bondi Beach, and available until 7 February, the touchscreen system invites passers-by to play a whack-a-mole inspired game. The rules of the game are simple: the players need to save as many swimmers as they can, by hitting the lit up figures appearing on the board. Thanks to the contactless payment technology, players can donate 1.99$ to the Australian charity after they finish the exciting 30-second game.

“Support from JCDecaux in trialling this new technology for our campaign has been amazing and we hope the community will jump on board, play the game and donate,” explained Melissa King, CEO at Surf Life Saving Australia, who described this move as a good experience for the public to become aware of the water-related dangers.

To show gratitude for the donation, the charity thanks the players by letting them know that they haven’t just played a simple game, but have played an important part in saving a life. Alan Klein, Head of Creative Solutions at JCDecaux says: “We’re proud to provide an easy and rewarding way for people to donate today to Surf Life Saving Australia’s Be a Life Saver campaign.”

This initiative marks the third year the agency supports the national Be a Life Saver campaign. The France based agency, JCDecaux, is known for winning the “Best Original Billboard” at the The DailyDOOH Gala Awards, for the company’s iconic structure Wandsworth Roundabout that targets multiple flows of traffic as they head in and out of London with four large digital screens which deliver over 200 square metres of digital space.

Credits:

Client: Surf Life Saving Australia

Creative agency: JCDecaux