MAFMAD men (and women) in road safety advertising: Are user created messages superior?

Although some road safety marketing practitioners believe that social media is a superior method to target young road users through user created advertisements, this is still a conjecture as no research has been conducted comparing the effectiveness of user created advertisements and traditional government paid advertisements. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge and practice in road safety advertising and social media, explores the role of social media in road safety campaigns, and proposes a conceptual model that can be used to compare the persuasive ability of government paid advertisements and user created messages.