This week, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) launched a powerful new brand — including a new visual identity, tagline, and messaging narrative — that re-energizes the iconic organization for the final push to end impaired driving.
MADD began in 1980 when its founder turned grief into action after losing her teenage daughter to a drunk driver, sparking a movement that has since contributed to half a million lives saved and supported millions of victims and survivors.
Today, far fewer people are killed or injured by impaired drivers than before 1980 — but the problem hasn’t gone away. Relaxed cannabis laws, the explosion of opioid use, and advanced technology have added new dimensions to impaired driving, offering more complex challenges and more potential solutions. From rideshare apps to innovative auto tech to smarter laws and law enforcement, there’s both an urgent need and a real opportunity to make another giant leap forward against impaired driving and save thousands more lives each year. Take a look at the video we produced — at the top of this page — and see why this moment is the beginning of the end of impaired driving.
To seize this moment and finish this fight, MADD’s new brand identity modernizes their look, feel, and voice (which meant bidding farewell to more than two decades of logos featuring a martini glass and actual metal car keys). It provides the creative and brand infrastructure for the organization to reach younger, more diverse audiences. And just as important, the updated logo, color palette, and brand voice reflects MADD’s ongoing transformation in response to the evolving landscape of impaired driving.
“Our new brand identity is more than just a fresh look,” said Stacey D. Stewart, CEO of MADD. “It’s a recommitment to our mission to eliminate impaired driving in all its forms. With new threats on the road, including drugged and distracted driving, we want to empower every community member to become a part of the solution, whether through advocacy, education, or support for victims.”
MADD’s new logo features a bold triangular form inspired by the international warning symbol commonly seen on products, roads, and waterways — a shape that signifies both strength and change. The enhanced color palette continues MADD’s bold use of red, black, and white to evoke emotion and urgency — along with an array of Instagram-worthy secondary colors to add vibrance and flexibility.
A new typography set updates the brand’s look for a wider range of channels, while still connecting to MADD’s history of attention-grabbing sans serif headlines. And the new tagline — Impaired driving ends here — is a rousing and determined call to action that more fully captures MADD’s mission than their previous tagline, No More Victims.
“Working with MADD on this rebrand has been an incredible opportunity to help such an impactful organization evolve its visual identity and message,” said Matt Ipcar, Blue State’s Executive Creative Director. “The refreshed logo, tone, and digital presence are designed to inspire action and engage more communities in the fight against impaired driving.”
Alongside the visual updates, the new brand is rounded out by refreshed voice, tone, messaging and photo direction — all rooted in the brand’s core traits of energy, determination, capability, and humanity. With a consistent approach to flexing their message from outrage to joy, MADD can convey both the urgency of the fight against impaired driving and the joyful reasons we all want to keep our loved ones and fellow humans safe on the roadways. After all, we should all be free to do the things we love without the threat of impaired driving.
MADD’s new brand rolls out this week on their website, social channels, and field offices nationwide — ahead of the key deadline to maintain funding for the game-changing HALT Act. This law was passed by Congress in 2021 with MADD’s strong support, requiring all new cars to come equipped with smart technology that passively, seamlessly and unobtrusively detects and stops impaired driving.
Click here to learn more about the HALT Act
Blue State is proud to be MADD’s partner in rebranding the organization to grow their reach and turbocharge their mission to end impaired driving for good. On an extremely tight timeline — and in close collaboration with the MADD executive team and Board of Directors — this project truly represented the idea of a partnership between a nonprofit and their agency team.
This is an exciting moment for the organization, the cause, and everyone who cares about keeping our streets safe. We’re eager to see where MADD takes their new brand in the years ahead.