Following our recent shisha smoking awareness campaign aimed at informing young people about the risks in smoking shisha, TPW won the pitch to produce an alcohol awareness public health campaign, again aimed at a young demographic.
Much like the earlier project, we began with some in-depth research into the drinking habits and attitudes of the audience. Whereas shisha use had been introduced to the wider public as a part of Asian culture, alcohol use was predominantly an issue with young white teenagers, affecting black and Asian youth who were a couple of years older.
The information gathered via focus group meetings with youngsters allowed us to assess their habits and opinions around alcohol use, as well as an gaining an understanding of their communication habits. Traditionally, public health campaigns concerning legal substances (alcohol or cigarettes) have tended to focus on shocking the viewer with graphic images of diseased internal organs. One of the most powerful findings in our research was that although many of the young people would find these images unpleasant, their youthful sense of indistructability meant they remained detatched; seeing the images as relevant only to older people.
On the other hand, the focus group findings clearly indicated what the young people were concerned with, and that was their image – in terms of both physical appearance, and social status – amongst their peer group. Clearly, using this as a campaign focus would be far more engaging and relevant to them. We also found widespread and frequent use of various forms of social media, particularly Facebook; and after much brainstorming and concept design, it was these two factors that eventually became the driving force for the project.
Social media is so familiar to young people that all aspects of it could be used in a campaign aimed at them. Not only the visual appearence of Facebook style graphics for instance, but the special words, linguistic quirks, abreviations and even sounds used in online digital communication all played a part.
We used our research and experience in design and public health marketing to create possible concepts around social media, and delivery methods for the campaign (while remaining open to other themes and ideas). Many concepts were brainstormed, informed by all aspects of social media communication and the ways it is used by young people.
Along the way, our early thoughts included a possible print campaign, based on Facebook’s ‘tag’ image feature to create interest (some very rough visuals are shown here), but finally, we decided to take a completely digital approach, creating an information video that could be used online and shared via social media.
The headline title for the campaign was ‘Totally Wasted’, using the dual meaning in the word ‘wasted’: to be drunk (wasted), or for opportunities to be thrown away (wasted). The video featured a group of youngsters meeting at a house party where some would drink heavily, and it was these four drinkers and their individual journeys through the evening that formed the film’s narrative. Each character’s story introduced one of the real dangers of consuming too much alcohol, designed to make youngsters think a little before considering getting drunk.
It was important not to patronise or ‘preach’ to the youngsters, and to balance realistic language and behaviour against acceptability in a public project designed for local government. In another nod to authenticity, the film starred local youngsters, further ensuring visuals and sounds that the audience could engage with. The finished film had its first educational screening in a Q&A presentation at BCHS with Crosshill school in Blackburn. It has been a thoroughly interesting and exciting project to work on, and the final edit can be seen below and on our YouTube channel.
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See the Case Study