SIRE III

“Je bent een rund als je met vuurwerk stunt!” This phrase is one of the best-known phrases in Dutch marketing history. The campaign is against irresponsible use of fireworks.

The phrase has two meanings to it. You are a moron for playing with fireworks, and you are a cow for playing with fireworks. The second sentence has to do with, if you lose your fingers, your hand looks like a cows paw. 

I will give you a few examples of poster that SIRE posted:

This one speaks for itself. This person clearly was or is a cow.

Just put your finger in there, maybe after the first of January it won’t be possible any more. Ewwwww this picture is disgusting. But I think that the target group SIRE is aiming for could react to this.

(Something is off about this picture it looks fake. Or these woman just don’t have a bum)

This man was putting some fireworks in a plastic bag. He blew his own hand off.

So what SIRE did was basically just posting ads with shocking pictures. Most of the time the pictures showed people with missing fingers, hands, eyes or other body parts. The pictures are awful to look at, but this campaign was very successful.

Within the target group, 96% knows the ads and the phrase and give it a 7,9 as a grade. Within two years, the number of victims went from 2900 a year to 1900 a year.

Now a day SIRE does not makes campaigns against fireworks anymore. Another organisation took it over. Even tough the phrase does not make it to ads and commercials any more. Still people say the phrase ‘Je bent een rund als je met vuurwerk stunt’ when new years is getting close.