Launching at the start of Alcohol Awareness Week, the No Regrets campaign offered a fresh alternative to the typical hard-hitting or ‘preachy’ anti-alcohol campaigns. Here’s a little look at what we did.
No Regrets was a 10-week content marketing campaign we created on behalf of Leeds City Council and Forward Leeds to encourage 18-25 year olds across the city to rethink their drinking habits.
During our initial insight project into the drinking behaviours of this audience, we discovered that a key motivator for not drinking was waking up full of regret the next day. And what did our target audience regret the most? Choices that would have a negative impact on their career, wallet or reputation amongst their peers.
After the success of the insight, we were then asked to create and deliver a campaign based on our findings. With this in mind, we developed the concept of No Regrets – a peer to peer behaviour change campaign, that didn’t discourage drinking alcohol (we knew this wouldn’t go down well), but instead empowered young people to take control of their drinking, know when to call it a night and wake up feeling fresh.
For the campaign to work, it was crucial that the content was relatable and authentic. We did this by co-creating all the blogs, articles, videos and social media content with the target audience using an informal, ‘tongue-in-cheek’ tone of voice – sharing real stories and advice from real people.
Articles such as ‘5 Drinks Everyone Pretends to Like’ and the option to submit their own regretful stories provided our audience with shareable content that held a mirror up to their own behaviour, whereas mocktail recipes and the Free Pour Challenge promoted positive experiences.
In short, rather than bombarding readers with health warnings and scare stories, No Regrets educated young people in Leeds on the more immediate and typical effects of drinking (and how to avoid them) in a way that was relatable to them.
Take a look at No Regrets here.
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