There's a trend with awareness campaigns for them to be hard hitting, portraying stark imagery of people collapsed next to toilets or face down on the floor. We've been careful to avoid this type of direction since we started work on the campaign as it feels generic and forgettable.
Freshers week is an equally exciting and perilous time. It's often the first time away from home, and sometimes the first experience of social drinking.
The focus of this campaign was informing students that being excessively drunk wouldn’t just stop them getting served, but would stop them getting into bars and clubs in the first place.
We decided to use Instagram as the main delivery medium, and wanted to create a message that would engage the audience without them initially realising they were viewing a drink awareness message.
Flipping the filter
Instagram wasn’t just the platform to deliver the campaign, it also became the inspiration for it. We’ve all taken selfies—and no doubt slapped on a filter or two and a few stickers to make the picture look as awesome as possible.
But what if we flipped this process around? Instead of creating a beautiful selfie you'd be happy to share, we took the photo and transformed it into an embarrassing drunk portrait. Highlighting the state people end up in due to excessive drinking, making people think twice before doing themselves.
As video has a much higher level of engagement on social media, we produced a set of 3 motion graphics for the campaign. Each video followed the process of someone taking a selfie, then slowly transforming themselves to look more and more drunk.
Each carried its own message along the central theme—being too drunk meant not being allowed in bars and clubs.
To add to the effect, we designed the clips to use the same sort of visual elements as Instagram.
It's great working with an organisation that gives us the opportunity to be creative in our approach to this type of work. If you want to turn heads with an awareness campaign, let's talk.
