In this op-ed, Laura Halbert, general manager of customer strategy and marketing at Allianz Australia, draws on the lessons from the Seat Belters campaign to explore how brands can move beyond traditional metrics and instead drive meaningful behaviour change.
For years, the advertising, marketing and media world has relied on familiar metrics to measure success. Awareness, reach, sentiment, and media efficiency have been the cornerstones of evaluating campaigns.
But while these metrics are useful, they don’t always tell the full story. Are we truly making a difference in people’s lives? Are we helping them make better decisions? These are the questions we should be asking.
The reality is that people today are busier than ever. It’s not that they don’t care about important messages; they’re simply overwhelmed. Between work, family, and the constant stream of information, it’s hard for anything to stand out. That’s why it’s time for brands to rethink how they connect with audiences. Success isn’t just about being seen or heard – it’s about influencing behaviour in a meaningful way.
The campaigns that truly make an impact are the ones that go beyond grabbing attention. They create real change by helping people make safer, healthier, and smarter choices. This is the new standard for creative effectiveness.
Only When Creativity Meets Context Can Real Change Happen
It feels like everyone’s attention is being pulled in a hundred different directions. Add to that the pressures of a shifting economy and the rapid pace of technological change, and it’s no wonder people are constantly rethinking their priorities. For brands, this means we have to adapt and connect with audiences in ways that feel authentic and meaningful.
When it comes to public safety campaigns, the old playbook (warnings, shock tactics, or traditional education) just doesn’t cut it anymore. The issue isn’t that people don’t know what’s safe; it’s that context, distractions, and habits often override what we know to be the right choice.
This is where creativity came into play. We needed to cut through the noise, reduce distractions, and help people build better habits. As an insurer, we don’t analyse speed just for the sake of it. We do it because we know that driving faster increases the likelihood of accidents and claims. Reducing speed isn’t just a statistic for us – it’s about saving lives and preventing injuries, and genuinely caring.
So, we focused on making safer driving choices easier. When we shift our mindset from simply delivering messages to actively preventing harm, the role of brands becomes so much more powerful. It’s not just about communication anymore – it’s about creating real-world solutions that make a difference to our customers and the community.
An Example of Creativity in Practice
We saw an opportunity to help drivers make safer choices, not by telling them what not to do, but by modifying what they listen to. With excess speed linked to 54 per cent of fatal crashes worldwide, the issue wasn’t about awareness but real-world behavioural change. In response, we created Seat Belters, in collaboration with Forsman & Bodenfors, to leverage Spotify’s unique streaming intelligence to create personalised playlists that only included songs with a lower beats per minute (BPM), specifically under 80 BPM.
Research suggests songs with lower BPM – such as Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran – can promote steadier heart rates, calmer decisions and increased response time, leading to more relaxed, more controlled driving overall.
Ultimately, this campaign didn’t tell people to drive safer, it made it easier for them to be safer without even trying. Broader marketing and social‑behaviour research also show that meaningful engagement, such as clicks, shares, and active participation, is strongly linked to later behaviour change. A major meta‑analysis of 395 samples and over 434,000 customers found that behavioural engagement is an early, and reliable sign of action‑taking. This mirrors what we’ve seen with Seat Belters.
To date, users have created over 66,000 – and counting – playlists totalling more than 5.4 million minutes of safer‑driving music. With a 134 million total reach, the campaign has shown how strong engagement can translate into meaningful, measurable behaviour change in the real world.
What This Means
The way we think about creative effectiveness is changing. It’s no longer just about communication; it’s about creating interventions that genuinely help people in the moments that matter. Interventions work best when they seamlessly fit into what people are already doing, like listening to music while driving. And that’s exactly what Seat Belters set out to do.
What’s exciting is that Seat Belters wasn’t just a campaign – it was a tool. It showed how brands like Allianz can go beyond simply protecting and providing care for our customers after something happens. Instead, we can actively prevent harm in a way that feels effortless, enjoyable, and completely non-disruptive. We met people where they already were, and at a time when life feels busier than ever.
Last year, Allianz launched our new brand proposition – ‘Care you can count on’ – which reflects Allianz’s unique culture of care. At its core, Seat Belters embodies what this truly means and demonstrates Allianz’s promise to deliver genuine care at every step of the insurance journey – including everyday moments like driving your kids to school.
This is what the future of creative effectiveness looks like. It’s not about shouting louder or demanding attention. It’s about blending into people’s lives in a way that makes a real difference, proving that creativity can do so much more than communicate – it can create real change.
The Future Of Creative Effectiveness Is Yours
So, what’s next? The future of creative effectiveness lies in designing campaigns that adapt to people’s needs and behaviours. It’s not about louder messaging or flashier visuals. It’s about creating interventions that integrate seamlessly into daily life, making better choices feel natural rather than forced.
The lessons from Seat Belters alone could extend far beyond road safety, offering applications across any sector where public health depends on behavioural patterns – from stress management and sleep hygiene to nutrition and mental wellbeing.
As brands, we have an opportunity to create work that doesn’t just communicate value but actively delivers it. Whether it’s improving safety, health, or overall wellbeing, the ultimate measure of success is whether our campaigns drive real-world outcomes.
Increasingly, the true measure of creative effectiveness will be whether it makes everyday life safer, easier or better. The Seat Belters project signals a broader shift – creativity that doesn’t just communicate value but actively creates it.
At Allianz, we’re committed to this vision. By focusing on behaviour change, we’re not just redefining creative effectiveness – we’re setting a new benchmark for what it means to create meaningful, impactful work and delivering genuine care to our customers.
