Lifesaving Society of B.C. & Yukon uses towels to represent drowning deaths

It’s easy to forget that in the hazy days of summer beach-going, hundreds of Canadians die tragically due to drowning.

It’s a terrifying idea that the Lifesaving Society of B.C. & Yukon and agency partner, Taxi, is bringing to life through a commonplace summer accoutrement: the beach towel. Using a drone shot of 400 towels laid out on a Vancouver area beach, the agency poignantly represented each of the 400 Canadians who have died in the water every year.

As Lenea Grace, executive director of the Lifesaving Society B.C. & Yukon points out, “summer is the peak period for drownings across Canada, and we often see a spike around holiday weekends.”

According to Grace, the nonprofit wanted to remind people of the dangers and motivate them to visit lifesaving.bc.ca/watersmart to educate themselves on how to stay safe around bodies of  water. The Lifesaving Society’s ongoing public education campaign is geared around making Canadians “Water Smart.”

The objective was undertaken through one drone shot, one take, zoom in on a startling statistic of 400 deaths, and then zoom out, explains Graham Lang, CCO for Taxi North America, an agency which occasionally assists the Lifesaving Society B.C. & Yukon with ad hoc social content.

“We started very early in the morning to get ahead of the crowd, and as people started coming out they were confronted with these 400 towels, and there was a real public reaction,” Lang says.

The Lifesaving Society B.C. & Yukon typically does a lot of community outreach on key days and long weekends, and uses Taxi around bigger amplifications, Lang explains, like this summer’s National Drowning Awareness Week.

BC has a disproportionate share of the country’s drownings at nearly 22%, nearly 8 in 10 of whom are male. In the brief, the campaign goal was all about targeting young families, but Lang says it’s applicable to anyone who goes out on into the water, any time of the year, a “very broad” campaign that’s “by Canada, for Canada.”

There is some broadcast TV in August, as well as social/OLV. “For us, we needed to make it feel like it’s good for online video and social,” but there is a significant targeted media effort as well, Lang says.

The media partner is Essence/Mediacom.