Bold new campaign tackles cooking under the influence

Unattended cooking is the number one cause of house fires, and the number one cause of injury from fires that we attend. 

Based on our audience mindset segmentation model, we know that the ‘Disengaged’ audience, representing 20% of the population, are much more likely to leave their cooking unattended or cook under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

They’re more likely to be male, young, working, and live in big cities in shared rental accommodation. They have a relaxed approach to life and don’t recognise fire safety as an issue.

It’s not our job to tell them to stop drinking or smoking, but it is our job to stop them from frying afterwards.

This audience is hard to reach with traditional messages and channels. They don’t like being told what to do and any perceived lack of authenticity is an immediate turn off.

Our new campaign, ‘You’re Cooked’, is designed to be unmissable and put fire safety on the radar for this audience, in a way that feels relevant. We know they’re going to prepare food at home while impaired, so our intention is to encourage them to do so safely by helping them to ‘stay off the stove’. It features two key elements: a suite of recipes and a range of content from a test kitchen street activation.

• We designed recipes catered specifically for drunk chefs. Simple, delicious, and requiring absolutely no stovetop frying (or oven use). Our recipes are the backbone of our campaign – check them out at fireandemergency.nz/yourecooked(external link)
• We created our own mobile test kitchen and took it for a night out in Auckland and engaged real punters and show them they can forget about the stove for their late-night feed, gathering plenty of content we can use to amplify our campaign – and our message – over time. 

Check out our video content:

The concept is evidence-based and has been tested with the target audience and our people.

Help distribute the campaign materials

• Digital content including social media content, videos, A3 and A4 posters, and email signatures are available on the Portal Bookshelf(external link) and the Facebook Admins Group.
• Physical collateral, including coasters, posters, magnets and mini cookbooks are being distributed to all Districts. We need your help get the posters and coasters into the local pubs and bars and distribute the mini cookbooks and magnets to relevant audiences at events such as Tradie Pub Days, O-Week and more. We will send a follow up email once the resources are being dispatched.
• We will also continue discussions around piloting use of the test kitchen at relevant community events.

 Take a look at how it all came together: