Independent UK charity Drinkaware aims to change the UK’s drinking habits for the better. It asked Frank PR and Enable Interactive to help put together an engaging campaign to convey Drinkaware’s responsible drinking message around the key December period. 

Strategy

This campaign brought together PR, website, experiential and online advertising elements in a campaign called “What’s Britain drinking this Christmas?”. Aimed at 25-44 year old ‘increasing risk’ drinkers (those who regularly exceed the recommended daily unit guidelines of two to three units for women and three to four units for men). This target audience was invited to take part in an exciting live national experiment to investigate the nation’s drinking habits over the Christmas period, asking them how much alcohol they had consumed in the last 24 hours.

With PR and online working in unison to drive users to the bespoke unit calculator, visitors were provided with three key touch points where they could fill in an interactive survey: 1) On the Drinkaware website, 2) via rich media online ads, or 3) by using portable touch-screens in city-centre locations around the country.

The campaign objective was to increase awareness of units as a measurement of alcohol, and improve understanding of the daily recommended unit guidelines. This information had to be conveyed without patronising, preaching or finger wagging.

The key campaign target was for 30,000 users to interact with the campaign and the Drinkaware website and an OTS of one million in the PR campaign.

Methodology

A PR launch created early buzz amongst trade press by publicising details of the public health campaign. This was followed by a mass research-based consumer campaign that looked into typical alcohol consumption over the festive period and gave details of the experiential activity to measure the actual consumption.

At the regional events (taking place in London, Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham), promotional staff encouraged shoppers to take part in the campaign, recording what they had to drink in the last 24 hours on portable touch-screen computers. Information collected on the touch screens was displayed live on giant screens in each location, so that participants could see their name and statistics on their drinking appear immediately on the big screen. A webcam also filmed the biggest of the screens in London’s Covent Garden and the activity around it, sending a live video stream to the Drinkaware website homepage.

The Drinkaware website homepage, as well as capturing users’ drinking data, displayed a live feed of information from all three elements of the campaign. It also visualised interesting trends from the campaign, such as most popular drinks; regions that are drinking the most/least; and how men’s drinking compares with women’s. Once website users had inputted their drinking details from the last 24 hours, they saw their name and statistics appearing on the giant screen in Covent Garden. This added an interesting live element to the campaign, connecting website users to the real-world regional event, and vice-versa.

The interactive online adverts on third-party sites offered similar functionality to the website: capturing users’ drinking data and giving basic feedback based on their input. Users had to click through to the Drinkaware website for more detailed feedback, and to see how their drinking consumption compared to other participants.

By taking part in the campaign, users were exposed to important information about responsible drinking, presented in an original way that was likely to get them thinking. For example, users were told how many calories were in the drinks they consumed, and given junk-food equivalents

Results

More than 111,000 people engaged with the campaign during December 2009.The campaign beat the initial targets of 30,000 interactions with the unit calculator and an OTS of 147 million (target: 1 million)

The Drinkaware website received an unprecedented level of traffic throughout December, totalling 204,858 visitors, which is a monthly record for the site . The campaign launch day saw the highest number of visitors to the site in a single day: 11,313.

The PR campaign generated over 100 pieces of coverage with highlights including Daily Mirror, Evening Standard, AOL and spokesperson slots on GMTV, STV and BBC London amongst others. Key headlines ranged from ‘£600 million booze units to be drunk over Xmas’ to ‘Boozing on the big screen’ and ‘Britons down 265m pints for Xmas’. The total OTS for campaign was over 147 million with a PR value in excess of £700k.