Irish Aviation Authority: Two Years of Safety Campaigns People Actually Watched

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) asked Vroom to make drone safety something people would actually stop and watch. It worked, so the IAA brought us back the following year and added a second campaign.

Across two campaign years, in both English and Irish, the work was seen around 14 million times on Google alone and watched more than 730,000 times.

At a glance

• Client: the Irish Aviation Authority, Ireland’s aviation safety regulator
• Services: paid social on Meta, plus YouTube and display through Google Ads
• Campaigns: drone safety (2023 and 2024), air passenger rights and reduced mobility (2024)
• Languages: English and Irish, both years
• Relationship: two consecutive seasonal campaigns, renewed and expanded

The challenge: making regulation worth watching

Public safety messages are some of the hardest to land. People scroll straight past them. For the IAA, the brief came with every challenge a public body faces:

• A low-interest topic. Few people go looking for drone regulations, even though anyone flying a drone over 250g or with a camera has to register
• Behaviour change, not sales. Success meant people registering their drones and knowing the rules, not clicking “buy”
• The right moment. Drones are popular Christmas gifts, so the message had to land when new owners were about to fly
• Two official languages. Campaigns had to work properly in English and in Irish
• Public money. Every euro had to be justified, with clear results to report back to management

Creative strategy: built for attention

We started by auditing the IAA’s previous campaign to set a baseline, then built a strategy around one goal: get people to watch the message, not just scroll past it.

• Video first. Short, clear video designed to be watched to the end on Meta and YouTube
• A seasonal hook. Timed for Christmas, when drones are bought and first flown
• Several copy styles, tested. No single message works for everyone, so we ran a range and let performance decide
• Wide reach, then focus. Broad awareness across Ireland, with extra weight on people already interested in drones

The strongest line was simple and seasonal: “If a drone is on your Christmas list, remember: safety is your responsibility. Get registered and know the rules before you fly this festive season.”

English and Irish, done properly

Both years, the campaigns ran in English and Irish as campaigns in their own right, not translated as an afterthought. That matters more than ever for public bodies. Under the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021, at least 20% of a public body’s advertising each year must be in Irish, and at least 5% of its advertising spend must go on Irish-language media.

Year two: renewed and expanded

After the first campaign, the IAA renewed the drone safety campaign for 2024 and added a second: making sure air passengers, including people with reduced mobility, know their rights when they travel. Two campaigns, two audiences, both languages, delivered together.

Results

2023: drone safety

• 208,000 completed video views on Meta
• 39% of video impressions watched to the end, against an industry norm of 8 to 12%
• 4.1 million impressions and 48,000 clicks to the IAA website through Google
• Better reach and lower costs than the previous year’s campaign

2024: drone safety plus air passenger rights

• 9.8 million impressions on Google across both campaigns
• 59,900 clicks to the IAA website
• 530,000 video views on YouTube and Google

Is this you?

If you are a public body, regulator, semi-state or charity with a message people need to hear but are not looking for, you face the same challenge the IAA did. We help you get attention, change behaviour and prove it worked, in English and in Irish.

Talk to us about your next campaign, or see our paid social and Google Ads services.

We are delighted with the results of the campaign, which is driving significant ROI already, and even more importantly, significant awareness about the risks of flying drones in public. From an engagement perspective, the campaign has also been very beneficial for both us and the consumer, with comments and enquiries up significantly on previous years. Bronagh and the team at VROOM really understood from the off what this campaign was about and delivered across the board for us.

Alec Elliott, Corporate Affairs and PR Manager, Irish Aviation Authority