Texting-while-driving PSAs are a little old hat, aren’t they?
In March, a group of New York vets compared picking up your smartphone in the car to pointing a gun at your own head, and way back in 2009 reality TV star Donny Deutsch said that one particular public service project was, like, the best thing ever. Just last month, BBDO and AT&T earned a fair amount of attention for their “distracted driving” campaign while Saatchi Sweden enlisted Siri to make sure drivers can’t even consider glancing at their phones while on the road.
Cramer-Krasselt’s Chicago office, however, has a new solution to the problem in the form of glumbs.
What are they, exactly? They’re standard gloves missing one key component: opposable thumbs.
They’re not designed for lesser life forms–simply for those drivers who can’t quite resist doing a little fancy fingerwork while weaving through Windy City traffic.
Apparently, C-K’s summer interns brainstormed this one when asked to “make friends for something we believe in,” and they were inspired in part by the very campaigns mentioned above. They even came up with a hashtag (#StopTheThumbs), a GIF-free quiz, a Canadian version made of recycled jorts, and a tagline of sorts:
“The only thing dumber [than Glumbs] is texting while driving.”
Some Canadian dude is into it:
If you think texting and driving isn’t dumb, there’s a driving glove for you. They’re called @Glumbs. #onpoli pic.twitter.com/J8mWOryodO
— Patrick Searle (@Patrick4ONT) July 27, 2015
Said interns also countered all the negativity in the ad business by creating a “why are you smiling?” chalkboard and a meditative video/app for dealing with an anxiety attack while, say, preparing to read a bunch of horrible comments about yourself and your career.
Some may claim that the Chicago agency world is in dire straits, but its younger members just want everyone to reconsider the value of a working pair of thumbs.