Toyota's safe-driving app plays parents' uncool music when teenagers speed

How can terrified parents of newly qualified teen drivers persuade them to drive safely? Toyota has come up with what could be an ingenious method -- embarrassing them.

The brand's new Safe and Sound App, created by Saatchi & Saatchi London, not only blocks social media posts and incoming calls once they're traveling over 9 mph, it automatically switches to playing their parents' Spotify playlist once they break the speed limit or try to use their phone. And, naturally, parents are free to put as much embarrassing music on there as they choose.

The parents activate the app when the teen wants to borrow their car, and it syncs both parent and child Spotify accounts. The app uses Google Maps API technology to detect if they're speeding, and when the young driver touches their phone or breaks the speed limit, the music they are playing through Spotify will suddenly cut out and their parents' playlist will kick in instead. Only once the driver stops interacting with their phone or returns to within the speed limit will their own music resume playing.

Jason Mendes, executive creative director of Global brands at Saatchi & Saatchi, explains in a statement:

"Tell teenagers to turn their phone off in a cinema and they will -- tell them to turn it off in a dangerous situation, like driving a car, and they won't. Go figure. However, for teenagers, the threat of embarrassment is far more severe than the threat of injury -- that insight we thought was a powerful platform to create something that would cut through, make a difference and ultimately continue the conversation around safety." 

The app is available to all drivers, not just those of Toyotas, for Android phones only.

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