Alcohol & Drug Foundation (ADF) has launched a new national health campaign with Campaign Edge aiming to tackle COVID-19 drinking.
Funded by the Australian Government, Break the Habit reveals that it takes only around 66 days to form a habit – roughly the same amount of time many Australians spent in lockdown.
It’s a fact most Aussies are unaware of, with a poll commissioned by the ADF showing that fewer than 10 per cent of Australians were able to accurately estimate how long it takes to form a habit.
The survey of 1,000 Australians also revealed nearly one in five Australians wish they had drunk less alcohol during the lockdown and that a similar number, nearly 20 per cent, want to reduce the amount of alcohol they’ve been consuming recently
Targeted at Australians aged 21-51 living in metro regions, the campaign highlights that even small increases to the amount of alcohol you drink can become harder to shift over time. It encourages people to consider their recent drinking patterns, help them recognise any problem signs and what to do to turn them around.
The creative, developed by Campaign Edge, centres around an animated creature representing the ‘little habit’ of drinking more than usual that some Australians picked up during lockdown.
Speaking on the campaign, Campaign Edge Executive Creative Director, Dee Madigan commented: “This is one of those rare and fun times when you are writing an ad for which you are 100 per cent the target market! It was an incredibly good brief from a client who knows the issues and the insights and was able to communicate them to us exceptionally well. We also had great talent direction from Simon ‘Mo’ Macrae and brilliant VFX from Cutting Edge.
“Making people feel bad about themselves isn’t the way to change behaviour. The creature allows us to focus on the habit rather than the person. The interesting fact about how habits are formed in 66 days makes the ad particularly relevant and it removes the guilt. Frankly, it’s no wonder people came out of COVID drinking too much – God knows, I did!
“It was a balancing act getting the creature right – not too hideous but not too cute. Not too hideous because many Australians do enjoy having a few drinks at night –, so there is no point pretending it’s not attractive. A really revolting habit at the start of the ad would also have turned the target market off – they would have thought ‘that’s not me – I wouldn’t have a habit so gross’.
“The idea was to show how a little habit can turn into something that’s actually a bit scary. We also wanted to show how empowering it can feel to put that lid back on the bottle and make the creature go away.”
Also involved in the campaign was Icon Agency.
Matt Thomas, Icon Agency’s Head of Public Relations, said the Campaign Edge TVC used an animated creature to represent the little habit of drinking more than usual that some Australians picked up during lockdown.
“Based on a growing data pool that many Australians increased their alcohol consumption during the coronavirus lockdown, this was an important topic that needed to be approached in a targeted and timely manner,” Thomas said.
“Understanding the ways in which Australians have responded to the pandemic thus far and the impact ongoing uncertainty is having on them was central to developing our behaviour change methodology to support the amplification of this campaign across media relations, influencers, stakeholder amplification and social.
“Our ambition was to reach as many as Australians as possible with a high-impact launch. Leveraging Campaign Edge’s advertising and key campaign insight, we armed ourselves with a media kit jam-packed with video news releases, case study B-roll and extensive new data, pre-empting what media might ask for and understanding the current landscape compromising usual newsroom resources.”
The campaign will continue to roll out the across earned, paid, owned and shared content channels until mid-September with partners Icon, Atomic 212 and The Lab.
CREDITS
Client – Alcohol and Drug Foundation
Head of Marketing and Communications: Cinzia Marrocco
Marketing Manager: Petra Keckeisen
Communications Manager: Kelly Ward
Media Manager: Carmel Green
Digital Marketing specialist: Sakina Saxena
Senior Campaign Coordinator – Rebecca Martinelli
Creative agency – Campaign Edge
ECD/Writer: Dee Madigan
Art Director: Samantha Harley
Managing Director: Stuart Gillies
Account Director: Ari Margossian
Production Company: Edge Studios
Director: Simon ‘Mo’ Macrae
Post Production: Cutting Edge
Digital: Paul Judge, Jayden Anderson
Integration agency – Icon Agency
Strategy and integration lead
Head of Public Relations: Matt Thomas
Media and stakeholder relations
Associate Account Director: Sophia Pellatt
Account Manager: Rebecca Peck
Account Coordinator: Annie McBrearty
Influencer engagement
Account Director: Fiona Miller
Account Executive: Robyn Rigoli
Social Media
Group Account Director: Hazel Tiernan
Creative strategy: Emily Naismith
Junior Account Director: Jo Raine
Senior Designer: Mark Oriondo
Account Executive: Alex Tanner
Media Agency – Atomic 212
Claire Fenner – Managing Director
Rory Heffernan – General Manager
Asier Carazo – Strategy Director
Sarah O’Leary – Head of Client Service
Devon Roberts – Planning & Trading Director
Taylor Suen – Performance Director
Anna Nguyen – Planning & Trading Manager
Elise Pektuzun – Paid Social Media Manager
