Miami car dealer and local TV stations promotes caution among friends when partying and driving.

The statistics are staggering: Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death in the United States for people between the ages of 1 and 34. Thirty percent of Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash in their lifetimes. Such accidents cause damages worth more than $50 billion a year.

After a decline of alcohol-impaired driving throughout most of the 1990s, a new study shows that driving while intoxicated has increased significantly and researchers believe it is linked to an increase in binge drinking.

To counter this trend, a local Miami car dealer, Esserman Nissan, and its advertising agency, Creative Marketing Partners, came up with the idea of producing a TV commercial in the form of a PSA and asked its media partners to run it as a public service.

Several TV stations loved the idea and CMP was able to enlist WFOR- Ch.4(CBS), WTVJ-Ch. 6(NBC), WSVN-Ch. 7(FOX), WLTV-Ch. 23(UNIVISION) and WSCV-Ch. 51(TELEMUNDO) to air the commercial for a period of 12 weeks.

The spots, conceived and produced by CMP, show two young men letting the air out of the tire of a sporty Nissan parked outside a trendy Miami nightclub. Minutes later, an obviously drunk driver stumbles to his car and realizes that he cannot go anywhere because of the flat tire.

The spot ends with the announcer saying: “Good friends will do anything to keep you from drinking and driving!”

The reaction from viewers has been extremely favorable, says Dick Assmar, Vice-president of Esserman Nissan: “We did this because we are concerned by the fact that drunken driving statistics are on the rise. We are very pleased by the acceptance on the part of the media and the TV viewers.”

To vie spot CLICK below:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7659703973665708138&hl=en