Engen Gives Fire Safety Info and Tool to South Africans

Every year, as part of its corporate social investment, Engen, an Africa-based petroleum company, distributes a paraffin safety calendar. Paraffin accidents are often behind the many devastating fires that destroy South African shantytowns. According to statistics, 10 percent of South Africa’s population lives in these informal settlements and it is estimated that 10 shack fires break out everyday, resulting in about 200 deaths a year. This year, rather than just issue a regular calendar, Draftfcb Capetown helped Engen create paraffin safety calendars that are also fire blankets.

Fire blankets are not a new invention, but this fire blankets as an ad and a safety calendar is definitely something new and useful for South Africans who don’t always have fire blankets on hand when they need them. The idea is that the calendar would be hung on a wall somewhere in the home so if and when a paraffin fire broke out, it could be quickly extinguished wit the calendar fire blanket before it grew bigger and spread through the village. The calendar is printed with special fire retardant ink.

It’s always awesome to see ads that are actually useful to people. Hopefully this will be a growing and continuing trend. Other brands that have created useful ads lately include Nivea, Scrabble and IBM. Draftfcb Capetown submitted this campaign in the “Innovation Lions” category at Cannes.