In Sweden, alcohol is controlled through a retail monopoly in order to prevent alcohol from being sold to anyone under 20 y.o. But every day tens of thousands of liters are sneaked across the borders – soon to be sold straight to minors by illegal dealers, often connected to other forms of organized crime.

The objective of the campaign was to raise awareness among 50,000 youths, 15-19 y.o, about smuggled alcohol and it’s connection to organized crime.

One key insight was that youths don’t see bootleg alcohol as a problem but rather a great service with delivery 24/7 and no age check. Another key insight was that youths don’t want to be told what to do and what not to do. They want to be treated as adults and decide for themselves.

In order to show teens that dealing with smuggled alcohol is a dangerous game, we launched the integrated campaign Ring Roger. The hub of the campaign was a technically advanced interactive film experience on www.ringroger.nu/en.

At the site the visitors were asked to upload a photo of themselves and a friend. They then starred as the leading characters in an interactive experience that revealed the dark side of smuggled alcohol. During the experience one was given different choices where each choice affected the outcome of the experience in different ways.To create awareness and drive traffic to www.ringroger.nu/en we aired a trailer for the interactive experience on TV and Cinemas. We also reached out to the digital field (bloggers, communities, and forums) with information about the campaign and the issue of smuggled alcohol. In this way we integrated advertising and PR to maximize the campaign effect.

The campaign was a huge success. In total 100,000 visitors entered the experience at www.ringroger.nu/en. Generally they spent over 9 minutes on the campaign site, way above average. This meant that the quantitative campaign objective was outperformed by 100 %.Another very positive effect of the campaign was a wide spread in both digital and traditional non bought media. More than 250 youth blogs wrote about www.ringroger.nu/en and numerous articles about the campaign and the problem of smuggled alcohol was published in national media during the campaign period. Youths and the public were made aware the minors main supply of alcohol aren’t only parents and older friends but also criminals.