Queensland Government Turns Designated Drivers Into Legends
Queensland Government's #LiftLegend is a 2018 Australian road safety film campaign created by Publicis Worldwide, Brisbane, that encourages people to nominate a sober driver during the Christmas and summer holiday period, framing that designated driver as a hero rather than positioning drink-driving as a crime to be punished.
The campaign launched during the week of 11 December 2018, timed to intercept Australians in the lead-up to one of the country's most statistically dangerous periods on the road. Rather than deploying the fear-based or graphic crash imagery that had long defined public service road safety communications in Australia, #LiftLegend pursued a fundamentally different emotional register. It asked audiences to celebrate the person who stays sober and drives everyone home safely, honouring that individual as someone who genuinely takes care of the people around them. The campaign name itself functions as a social identity: accepting the title of LiftLegend is cast as an act of community and care, not sacrifice.
In Australia, the campaign ran across an exceptionally broad media footprint. As reported by Campaign Brief, channels included television, cinema, radio, digital, social, outdoor, bottle-shop advertising, licensed-venue placements, and Big Bash League cricket activations. This multi-channel deployment reflected both the scale of Queensland Government's ambition and the need to reach Australians at the precise moments — bottle shop, pub, sporting event — when drink-driving decisions are made. The campaign's initial period extended from Christmas and New Year 2018 through to Australia Day, and per reporting on LinkedIn and Bandt, it was subsequently scheduled to reappear during ANZAC Day and Labour Day risk periods before being re-run in December 2019 for the following festive season. Publicis Worldwide had won the Transport and Main Roads account in July 2018, making #LiftLegend one of the agency's first major public interest deliverables for the Queensland client. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 58 out of 100.
Publicis Worldwide built #LiftLegend on a consumer insight that separated it from the prevailing logic of road safety advertising in Australia. The dominant approach across Australian jurisdictions had long relied on shock, guilt, and consequence — a tradition most associated with Transport for NSW's long-running Towards Zero work and with Victoria's TAC campaigns, which according to the Victorian Auditor-General's Office have represented consistent multi-million-dollar annual investments in road safety media. Queensland Government's brief to Publicis asked for something structurally different: a campaign that created a positive social identity around sober driving rather than reinforcing fear of punishment.
The strategic rationale rested on a recognition that during the Christmas and summer period, Australians make drink-driving decisions in social contexts — at parties, venues, and sporting events — where peer influence is the most powerful force in the room. By creating the concept of the LiftLegend and giving it a name worth claiming, Publicis gave designated drivers a socially rewarding role. The campaign did not target the drink-driver directly. It targeted the entire friendship group, asking anyone in the circle to volunteer. This collective-action framing is behaviourally distinct from individual deterrence messaging and represents a meaningful creative and strategic departure for public service road safety in Australia.
New South Wales invested approximately A$137 million in road safety campaigns between 2011–12 and 2017–18, according to the NSW Parliament, illustrating the scale of public funding committed to the category across Australia. Queensland's #LiftLegend campaign operated within this competitive landscape of state-funded road safety communications, differentiating itself not through budget dominance but through tonal and strategic contrast with fear-led competitors.
Executive Creative Director Ryan Petie led the creative development of #LiftLegend at Publicis Worldwide, Brisbane, with Creative Director Lee Griffin shaping the campaign's emotional architecture and Director Jonas McQuiggin helming the film. Head of Content and Broadcast Vicki Lee oversaw production. The assembled team made a decisive creative choice that defines the campaign's identity: they scored it to a re-recorded version of Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings, one of the most recognisable anthems of selfless devotion in popular music.
The choice of that song is the campaign's central creative argument. Wind Beneath My Wings is culturally understood as a tribute to the person who supports you without seeking recognition. Applying it to the designated driver recontextualises a mundane logistical role as an act of genuine heroism. The film does not show crashes, police breath-test units, or courtrooms. It shows people being looked after — arriving home safely because someone cared enough to stay sober. That positive emotional frame is rare in Australian public service road safety work and represents a considered craft decision rather than a default. Music supervision for the campaign was associated with The Sound Pound, as documented on their materials.
The campaign's deployment across bottle shops and licensed venues extended the creative idea into the environments where it matters most. Seeing the LiftLegend message at the point of a drink-driving decision — inside a pub or at a bottle-shop counter — closes the loop between the emotional prompt delivered by the television and cinema film and the behavioural moment it is designed to influence. That integration of creative logic and media placement reflects purposeful execution of the Queensland Government's road safety objective.
No independently verified campaign-specific performance data for #LiftLegend — such as drink-driving incident reductions attributable directly to the campaign, claimed reach figures, or social engagement metrics — is publicly available from Queensland Government, Publicis Worldwide, or third-party measurement bodies at the time of this analysis.
What the public record does confirm is structural evidence of effectiveness. The Queensland Government's decision to re-run the campaign in December 2019, as reported by Bandt, is the most direct signal of institutional confidence in the work. Government road safety campaigns are subject to internal evaluation before continuation funding is approved; a second festive-season deployment indicates that Queensland Transport and Main Roads judged the first run to have justified renewed investment. The campaign's scheduling across multiple high-risk periods — Christmas, New Year, Australia Day, ANZAC Day, and Labour Day, per reporting on LinkedIn — further reflects a deliberate, evidence-informed media strategy rather than a one-time execution.
Structurally, #LiftLegend demonstrates several attributes associated with effective public service communications. Its positive social-identity mechanic gives audiences a participatory role. Its multi-channel footprint, documented by Campaign Brief, places the message at the moment of decision. Its musical anchor ensures emotional memorability. The campaign earned a Clapboard Score of 58 out of 100, reflecting competent and purposeful public interest work that breaks meaningfully from category convention while stopping short of the creative or cultural breakthrough that would push it into the highest tier of road safety advertising internationally.
#LiftLegend is a 2018 road safety campaign created by Publicis Worldwide, Brisbane, for Queensland Government Transport and Main Roads. It launched in December 2018 and encouraged Australians to nominate a sober driver during the Christmas period, framing that person as a hero rather than using fear-based messaging.
Publicis Worldwide Brisbane created #LiftLegend for Queensland Government. The agency won the Transport and Main Roads account in July 2018, as reported by Bandt. Executive Creative Director Ryan Petie and Creative Director Lee Griffin led the creative development, with Jonas McQuiggin directing the film.
The #LiftLegend campaign uses a re-recorded version of Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings. The song was chosen to frame the designated driver as an unsung hero, applying a culturally recognised anthem of selfless support to the act of staying sober and driving friends and family home safely.
#LiftLegend launched during the week of 11 December 2018 across television, cinema, radio, digital, social, outdoor, bottle shops, licensed venues, and Big Bash League cricket activations, as documented by Campaign Brief. It ran through Australia Day 2019 and was re-run in December 2019 for the following festive season.
#LiftLegend avoided the fear-based and graphic crash imagery common to Australian road safety advertising, including campaigns from Transport for NSW and Victoria's TAC. Instead, it created a positive social identity around the designated driver, using peer influence and celebration rather than deterrence as its primary behavioural mechanism.
The #LiftLegend campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 58 out of 100. The score reflects purposeful public interest work that breaks meaningfully from the conventions of Australian road safety advertising, while not reaching the level of creative or cultural impact associated with the highest-performing campaigns in the global category.
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