The Swim Reaper

WATER SAFETY NEW ZEALAND

Five years ago, young men accounted for 1/3 of preventable drownings in New Zealand. Someone needed to do something about it. But how do you reach guys who hate being told what to do?

We created the Swim Reaper: the world’s most unlikely Water Safety mascot. Every summer for five years, he roamed the swimming spots of New Zealand looking to ‘reap some peeps’. And then posted it all over Instagram - inadvertently pointing out dangers as he went.

The look and feel was all about beautiful NZ scenery, with a creepy harbinger of doom in every photo, living his best #hotgirlsummer. We showed him doing happy stuff, like playing beach volleyball, and riding inflatables. And took the piss out of every instagram cliche we could think of. Hot dogs or legs, live laugh love, yoga poses, you name it.

He gained over 500,000 followers on Instagram. He inspired copycats in the US and Austria. And a bunch of people got Swim Reaper tattoos.

Having to refresh the campaign each year took us to some pretty dark places. One year he introduced a range of ‘Summer Essentials’ products, geared towards helping people drown; another year he created a coal-powered machine called Bertha, who, underpinned by AI, predicted the dates and locations of upcoming water fatalities; another year he entered the fashion world, releasing a clothing range of black hooded towels emblazoned with pro-drowning mantras.

It must have struck a chord, because drownings of young men in NZ declined year-on-year through the length of the campaign.

Agency: FCB

Copywriter: David Shirley

Photographer: Michael Braid

Costume Designer: Lucy Holloway

Illustrator: Jon Contino