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The Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (Quebec’s heath and safety board) is airing a controversial television campaign designed to show the importance of workplace safety.
The spot features a worker attempting to start up some heavy machinery. When nothing happens, he realizes the breaker has been turned off and goes to turn it on. He then pushes the start button on the machine when a supervisor appears from behind waving and yelling at him to “stop.” The worker goes to see what the problem is and realizes he has crushed a fellow employee to death, which is shown in graphic detail.
The spot ends with the photo ID tag of a worker being attached to the breaker with the message, “Danger. Ma vie est en jeu.” (Danger. My life is at risk).
A second TV spot is almost identical to the first, but illustrates how to avoid accidents.
It’s the first creative by Marketel since winning the account from BCP earlier this year. Because of its graphic nature, the ad will only air after 9 p.m. to avoid upsetting children.
But the spot, which has been running since Sept. 29, has shocked some viewers who expressed their anger to the Journal de Montréal which ran a story on the campaign in the Wednesday edition.
The CSST defends the ad, noting that workers and focus groups were consulted before launching the campaign.
“In the original version, we didn’t show the accident, but workers told us we had to show the accident to make it work,” explained Marketel creative director Sébastien Pelletier.
There are on average 5,000 workplace accidents in Quebec each year resulting in six deaths, according to CSST spokesperson Alexandra Reny. After a similar spot ran in 2005 in which a worker lost an arm in a conveyor, workplace accidents dropped by 13%. Carat handled the media buy.
