Results and Effectiveness

23.6% lift in those that would take responsibility to their friends’ drinking 20.1% lift to consider their own drinking behaviour 26.4% lift in prompting consideration about the consequences of drinking too much Most importantly behaviour changed, with zero incidents of violent behaviour in the Cross and anti-social behaviour were down by more than 75% YOY during the campaign period. On a small budget we spoke to 91% of 16-24’s in NSW Metro. The 5 videos delivered 309,475 views, 5,200 likes, 680 shares, 249 positive comments, YouTube ranked 4 videos in Top10 best viral for 2 consecutive weeks.

Creative Execution

An impactful physical media presence was a given. But our research showed planning for a night out was just as important as the night out itself. And when the audience was in the planning mindset, they were more open to our messages. This ‘Path to Party’ – the bullseye to reach them before they ended up in the Cross. We needed to hit home their sense of peer group responsibility. Get them to consider both their own and their friends’ drinking behavior. And demonstrate that binge drinking has social, emotional and physical consequences far beyond just that night. We created 5 stories of people who had ‘seen it all’; bartenders, taxi drivers, doormen, a recovering alcoholic. And shared the stories through a tailored seeding strategy across key social hang-outs. Niche lifestyle sites, social media channels, YouTube, music and fashion sites worked together to provide the reminders for a safe night out.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Anti-social and violent behavior resulting from binge drinking in Sydney’s King Cross was becoming the norm. Attitudes and behaviours of a highly cynical audience of 16-24 year olds would be hard to shift, given a potentially patronizing government message and small budget of $507K. The core creative message of ‘What are you doing to yourself?’ sought to challenge one’s self-perception around behavior resulting from too much alcohol. The key insight was that the majority of just wanted to go out and have a good time, and were embarrassed when friends were drunk and anti-social. We needed to shift their point of reference and have them recognize how people would really see them if they were drunk, and the consequences of that behavior. And have this realization provide permission to call out friends’ anti-social and drunken behavior, and use the strength of the mass to moderate the behavior of the minority.