Dreamlike Traffic Safety Spot Becomes a Nightmare

Reality hits hard when you're crossing the street

So, you wanna keep your face glued to a phone screen while you cross a busy thoroughfare? That’s a crap idea. Because memes, K-pop and all manner of digital distractions aren’t nearly as real as a car or truck bearing down on you.

Ogilvy Spain and director Aarón Lago deliver the message in a disarmingly dreamlike PSA. The action grows increasingly stylized as a pedestrian gets sucked into an expanding online universe. It’s an effective and unexpected approach, more riveting, perhaps, than shooting entirely on location.

The dude appears especially vulnerable. His mental isolation makes him oblivious to his surroundings. We can feel this won’t end well.

And indeed, the :60 harkens back to the glory (oft-gory) days of traffic-safety spots from more than a decade ago. This one’s bloodless … to a point. But the closing shots suggest the walker might have reached his final destination.

“Saying that we’re a society held hostage by a screen may sound trite, but it’s completely true,” say agency creative directors Guille Fernández and Pablo Poveda. “Looking at your phone while crossing doesn’t expose you to a scare. It exposes you to an impact with an extremely high probability of death.”

“The real environment—the street, the pedestrian crossing—grounds the story in a familiar, everyday moment, where countless situations can go unnoticed,” Poveda and Fernández tell Muse. “In contrast, the studio enabled us to build a more controlled universe representing the kind of content that captures users’ attention on their phones. This contrast amplifies the impact of the abrupt return to reality, when the accident is revealed.”

“Shooting in a studio gave us full control over the aesthetic. It allowed us to elevate the artistic quality and reinforce a distinctive visual language, aligned with previous campaigns for the brand. This combination adds visual richness and heightens the dramatic tension.”

Spain’s Directorate-General for Traffic produced the appeal, which breaks amid the busy run-up to Easter.