DRYTUNES

Short List
TitleDRYTUNES
BrandDRY JULY
Product / ServiceNOT DRINKING DURING JULY
CategoryA08. Charities, Public Health & Safety, Public Awareness Messages
EntrantCLEMENGER BBDO SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation CLEMENGER BBDO SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Paul Nagy Clemenger BBDO Executive Creative Director
Toby Clark Clemenger BBDO Planner - Social Specialist
Denise McKeon Clemenger BBDO Head of Integrated Production
Toby Royce Clemenger BBDO Senior Editor
Ben Clare Clemenger BBDO Creative Director
Brendan Willenberg Clemenger BBDO Creative Director
Holly Whiteley Clemenger BBDO Senior Account Director
Celia Mortlock Clemenger BBDO Account Executive
Kirstin Lees Clemenger BBDO Post Production
Emil Cholich Clemenger BBDO Copywriter
Shaun Thomson Clemenger BBDO Art Director

The Campaign

Popular culture and music are soaked in alcohol references. One study found that of 720 songs in the Billboard charts, 23% included an alcohol mention, and 6.4% included an alcohol brand mention. With young Australians listening to music for up to 2.5hrs each day, the prevalence of alcohol-related lyrics is deepening Australia’s already entrenched culture of heavy drinking. So we used the forces working against us as our allies. We teamed up with Australia’s largest radio network, Austereo, and took all of the alcohol references out of their broadcasts for July.

Creative Execution

The execution of the core idea was simple. On the 1st of July Triple M’s stations ‘went dry’ across Australian capital cities. A sound effect was used to replace alcohol references (and there are plenty) in song lyrics. For example, it was played over words like ‘drink’ and ‘liquor’ and brands like ‘Ciroc’ and ‘Patron’, when they came up in songs. This was supported by promotional pushes across Austereo’s Hit And Triple M networks and their 9 stations throughout July. These included weekend sponsorships, on-air discussions, social media posts, and a number of Austereo hosts taking part in Dry July.

24% Increase in donations raised per active participant Total donations of $3.6 million Reached 4.9 million Australians with $0 media spend 16,760 sign-ups

To promote Dry July, a small charity that asks people to give up alcohol for a month to raise money for cancer we turned to a media that is often used to perpetuate pro-alcohol messaging, and flipped that perception on its head. The DryTunes work subverted the expectation of alcohol on radio media, integrating with programming, rather than trying to stand out in the crowded radio advertising space.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Dry July has a broad audience. While we were mainly focusing on 18 - 25’s, our partnership with Austereo allowed us to target a number of different, but equally important older demographics. We could speak to each segment individually with the music they love, whether that’s 80’s rock, or modern hits, based on the station they were listening to.