BEHIND THE SCENES: Booze maths never adds up

Ever wrestled with the question: how much is “safe” to drink before driving?

It’s one many ask themselves, but in the latest campaign for Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, McCann Group New Zealand have set out to show all the reasons why you shouldn’t.

For many, the moment the booze starts flowing, so do the calculations. They tally up the pints and glasses in their heads – then reassure themselves: “That’s only a few drinks.” Or perhaps: “Home’s just five minutes away.” 

Many think: “I’ve done the maths – it’ll be fine.”

But McCann’s (formerly FCB Aotearoa) group strategy director Amy Pollok and senior creatives Kat Tadaki and Claire Herselmen, flipped that logic, saying: “If it’s booze maths, it’s whacked.”

“Drink-driving is the same problem every year,” says Pollok. “The message can get really old, so we wanted to tackle it in a way that’s funny and relatable.

“Rather than finger-wagging, we thought, ‘How about we shine a light on these calculations people do?’”

Qualitative research confirmed they were onto something. 

“Almost everyone has a ‘drink-driving strategy’,” Pollok adds. “They’d say things like, ‘I won’t do it if it’s more than five kilometres, but if it’s less than that then I will.’”

From those insights came the “aha” moment.

“We explored a bunch of phrases through the creative process, but ‘booze maths’ stood out,” she says. “It captures that thing we all do that no one wants to talk about, because we all kind of pretend that we don’t do it.”

This plays out in the ad. Steve is about to drive home, thinking he’s only had a couple of beers – until a quick trip to the loo makes him rethink his booze maths.

Inside the cubicle is a ‘booze accountant’. He’s turned it into an mini office, ready to run Steve’s numbers. 

“How many beers have you had?”  

“A few… but I did just have a steak and chips,” Steve replies.

“How far away is your house?” the booze accountant asks, pulling out his Distance-O-Metre, which measures from “Near” to “Far.”

“There,” Steve points, sounding hesitant. 

“Ultimately, we’re trying to show an internal struggle,” says Pollok. 

“You don’t want the classic angel on one shoulder, devil on the other – that just feels too obvious. We wanted something more subtle.

“Steve’s facial expression does a lot of heavy lifting,” she adds. “Through his performance, people can see him thinking, “‘Should I…? Well, I’m feeling kind of conflicted.’”

He lists a few more excuses, hoping to get away. The calculations pile up – but the maths never adds up.

“From the beginning, we needed our main character Steve to feel relatable,” says scriptwriter Claire Herselmen.

“We wanted people to go, ‘He’s just like one of our mates,’ or for young Kiwi men to see themselves in him. He’s not drunk, he’s not an idiot, he’s just had a few too many.

“With the booze accountant, we didn’t want him to be an antagonist – someone clearly stopping you from drink-driving. We like him to be enthusiastic, on your side and wanting the best for you, but still call you on your bullshit.”

“It’s really important for an NZTA ad to be humorous,” adds Pollok, “because if it’s preachy, we just know it won’t work.” 

You can almost smell the set – was the ad shot on location? 

“To be clear, we did not in fact shoot that in the men’s toilet,” says Pollok.

Herselmen adds: “It’s not like we wanted to see the inside of the boys’ room.

“The production team from The Sweetshop very kindly built a little replica in the studio, making sure we had the right shade of piss stain in the back.”

Art director Kat Tadaki says: “There were so many details – handwritten graffiti, a half-drunk pint on the urinal. You’d never guess it wasn’t real.

“The Sweetshop’s a well-oiled machine. They even custom-made the Distance-O-Metre.”

(Featured Image: Amy Pollok, Claire Herselmen and Kat Tadaki with the custom-made the Distance-O-Metre.)

Tadaki also wrote the scribbles behind the booze accountant, which look like proper equations – but “they’re as made up as your booze maths,” says Herselmen. “I mean, put it out to some mathematicians, maybe they can find a hidden meaning, I’m all for it.” 

(Featured Image: The scribbles are as made up as your booze maths, says Herselmen.)

Pollok knew the campaign had made it into culture when industry peers mentioned catching friends or even themselves doing “booze maths” at weekend barbecues.

“You always wonder whether you can coin a phrase that’s actually going to stop someone from getting in the car. And it feels like that’s exactly what we’ve managed to do with this,” says Pollok.

Tadaki credits their success to the trust NZTA placed in them: “A lot of the time, your concept and what you execute can be completely different, but the client trusted us to keep the idea intact all the way through.”

Herselmen laughs: “The only pushback we ever got from them was that some of our ideas for how the toilet could look were a bit too grubby.”

Pollok agrees: “What went out into the world was very close to what we originally presented. They went with our creative vision, knowing people would watch it and think, ‘Ugh… I kinda see myself in the ad.’”

Beyond exposing the flaws in people’s booze maths, Pollok is happy. “You feel like you’re contributing to the canon of great, funny New Zealand advertising – and that feels really cool.”