skills/creative-director/references/legendary-campaigns/cards/att-close-to-home-2018.md

---
id: att-close-to-home-2018
title: "Close to Home"
brand: AT&T
agency: BBDO New York
year: 2018
country: US
region: north_america
industry: tech_telco
pattern: [P16, P13]
category: film
idea_type: campaign
involvement: passive_view
channel: digital
duration: campaign
goal: [awareness, behaviour_change, purpose]
budget: high
emotion: [protective, ashamed, reluctant_optimism]
emotion_tier: 3
insight_domain: fear
media_epoch: social
awards: [cannes_gold]
quality_score: 8
scalability: regional
risk: edgy
confidence: medium
quality: stub_enriched
source_url: https://www.lptremblay.com/closetohome
---

# Close to Home (AT&T · 2018)

## Insight
Texting while driving kills 3,477 people annually in the US. The abstract statistic doesn't move people — but the specific, named human being who died because someone couldn't wait does.

## Mechanic
A long-form documentary-style film series featuring real victims of distracted driving — and the drivers who caused the accidents. Both sides share their stories without dramatization: the person who died, the person who survived them, the driver who lives with what they did.

## Why it worked
AT&T had run distracted driving campaigns for years. This iteration moved from statistics and reconstructed scenarios to real people in real aftermath. Long-form drama (P16) gave enough time for guilt, grief, and responsibility to accumulate without simplification. Truth-telling (P13): showing the driver as a person who made an ordinary mistake with irreversible consequences was more disturbing than any villain framing.

## Steal
In behaviour change campaigns, guilt is more powerful when it's specific and human than when it's abstract and statistical. Showing the person whose text could not wait — and what happened — creates a mirror the audience cannot dismiss.

## Related
- Pattern: [[../MOC-pattern.md#p16]]
- Sibling: [[apple-1984-1984.md|1984]]
- Sibling: [[apple-think-different-1997.md|Think Different]]
- Emotion match: [[always-like-a-girl-2014.md|Like a Girl]]

---

*Author: Serge Shima ([t.me/aimastersme](https://t.me/aimastersme) · [sergeshima.com](https://sergeshima.com) · [aimasters.me](https://aimasters.me)) · License: CC BY 4.0 — attribution required · Source: [smixs/creative-director-skill](https://github.com/smixs/creative-director-skill)*