New Zealand road safety charity Brake and Y&R NZ have produced an emotive campaign to encourage New Zealanders to think about the potential life-long costs of their decisions on the road.

Five families who had lost loved ones in road safety crashed volunteered to be a part of ‘Living Memories’ for National Road Safety Week in New Zealand.

They they worked with a forensic age progression specialists and digital artists at Weta Digital to to create portraits of their children as if taken today – working from childhood and family photographs.

The campaign has attracted attention from the TVNZ Sunday Facebook page, TV One Breakfast, NZ Herald, Stuff.co.nz, NZ Women’s Weekly, and others.

Brake’s Caroline Perry says the campaign aimed to focus on “lost potential and lost futures” in addition to “lost lives”.

“Road crashes have devastating consequences for families and the effects last a lifetime. Living Memories has given these five families an opportunity to see what their child might have looked like, and demonstrates to the rest of us the lasting impact that crashes have.

Y&R NZ senior art director Lisa Dupre described the experience of working with the families as “profoundly moving”.

“I hope that this campaign will touch people in a meaningful way.”

The ‘Living Memories’ campaign includes print, social, online and outdoor media.