"Applying Makeup While Driving Can Be Deadly"

The new PSAs are via KIA Canada.

Suspiciously, there has been a rash of these "Don't Makeup and Drive" campaigns via major auto companies recently.

In May, Mini-Cooper "shocked" women applying makeup in bathrooms. In the video, via Mini Mexico, the automaker claims that "women cause 22% of all accidents."

And in June, a fake makeup tutorial by popular YouTube personality "Nikkie" and sponsored by Volkswagen won a Gold Lion at Cannes. In the video VW, citing the Telegraph, claims that "more than 500,000 road crashes are caused by women drivers applying make-up." No time frame is given. The video was actually produced in April 2012.

I am suspicious because, having worked on a couple PSA campaigns in my previous ad agency life, I know how the process of producing PSAs often works. 1. The ad agency, hungry for ad awards, offers to produce the ad/spot/video for free. 2. The client, hungry for good press, accepts.

What happened here, it appears, is that KIA Canada's ad agency, Innocean Worldwide, saw the press success of the Mini and VW PSAs and whipped up a generic campaign of their own for Kia.

I've emailed Innocean asking where exactly these ads are running/appearing.