Safety the Simple and Sexy Way
There are many, many articles on this site about Semiotics, Simplistic Safety and even Sexy Safety – if you have a few hours to spare you will find some very enjoyable and enlightening reading in there. Rob Sams wrote recently in “There is no way I would do that”:
Higgins’ understanding of human motivation being about ‘value’, ‘truth’ and ‘control’ requires significantly more critical thinking than the simple approach of ‘pleasure and pain’. If we continue down the path of thinking we just need to get people to ‘think safer’, of ‘marketing dumb down safety’ messages by ‘telling’ people simple and basic messages’ and of ‘we just need to ‘choose safety’, all will be good, right?
I am going to refrain from making judgements but will present some of the info and would love to hear your thoughts on the “Safety Sofie” KISS campaign by Belgium Construction Company ALTRAD (see they Safety Sofi Website). KISS stands for “Keep it Simply Safe” and other slogans include: “Safety is our no. 1 concern” and “You are the key to Safety Sofie’s success”
According to company website:
Safety Sofie was launched in August 2010. The launch was coupled with a big kick-off and a roadshow which went round different customers. The first reactions were rather mixed, ranging from ‘risqué’, and ‘anti-women’ to real ‘oh my goodness’ reactions. But when the results turned up and people became familiar with the approach, all the feedback we received was extremely positive.
Via a monthly calendar campaign, Safety Sofie draws attention to a new safety theme every time and encourages our people to actually put it into practice. We also have red-lip stickers, as a reward for working safely, lanyards, attractive cards with safety tips that we hand out to our workers and customers, and so on. Sofie isn’t just the face of our campaign: she’s also a real flesh-and-blood lady who regularly shows up on
work sites. During her site visits, she once again personally draws attention to the various safety themes and rewards safe behaviour with sticker kisses. You can be sure that our men are all ears for what she has to say.
How do they measure the success of their Sofie? In Oct 2014 the celebrated 2 million hours without an LTI!
As part of the campaign there are posters (see below), games, movies and regular audits and if you make a choice to follow the rules and be safe then you are rewarded with Kisses which can be exchanged for little trinkets form their extensive catalogue.
Check out the Semiotics on Sofie’s Van (1269 – “I like it Safely”)
These are some of the posters erected in the workplace:
 |
 |
| I fall for neat colleagues | Too tired again |
 |
 |
| We do it safely or we do not | Not sure what this means? |
If we are honestly talking about psychology and behavior, sex works. If it didn’t work, why would companies use sex to sell everything from cosmetics to food, automobiles, and medicines. The fact that it is a lovely woman is driven simply because it seems to be a male dominated industry. If you had a female dominated industry, I am certain that a dashing gentleman would have similar results. We are motivated by sexuality; why not use it as so many other industries do, as a tool / another resource in a vast array of different approaches to achieve that final goal.
Sex may ‘work’ but doing so is not ethical. The long term outcomes of using sex to sell has been highlighted by the #metoo movement and most often results in devaluing women and normalizing dysfunctional images of relationships. If safety needs sex to sell its message then it has a problem.
Such shallow strategies are evidence of a lack of critical thinking and ethical expertise.
Safety should be comprehensively ‘safe’. I want my daughters and grandaughters to be ‘safe’ from the sexualising predatory exploitation that justifies using females as objects for another purpose.
The key to embodiment is to understand the whole person/mind not just focus on the body as a ‘thing’.
Safety needs to be far more educated about what it does and all credibility is lost if you need sex to present meaning!