Young Australian’s don’t drink. They get shitfaced. Getting blind drunk is a national pastime and a rite of passage. Every tactic has failed to curb the epidemic. Mostly because youth are notoriously unreceptive to advertising on the topic, and the expected scare campaigns are completely ineffective. So we did the opposite and encouraged them to drink. Properly.

Which means drinking in a classy, sophisticated way that re-frames moderation as a cool thing to do.

And so HOW TO DRINK PROPERLY was born. The campaign was designed to spark public debate in a surprising and credible way about youth moderation - speaking in their language and on their level to ultimately change the way they think about drinking. Every touch point of this controversial yet educational campaign was designed to encourage talkability, sharing and public debate. The relatable, profanity-packed content was seeded with influencers, and quickly gained the attention of media outlets; stimulating conversations about moderation.

Instead of tuning out, our target welcomed the campaign and endorsed it -liking, sharing, tagging and promoting the message for us. Mainstream media followed. As a result, we generated 43 million+ earned media impressions, incited 12,000+ conversations on social media, achieved engagement 511% above the alcohol industry average and secured $1.43 million in earned media value.

Our campaign relied heavily on PR to receive the attention and ‘push’ that only mass media could generate. Our unexpected approach to the problem allowed us to get a moderation message, and the words ‘fuck’, on TV with a limited budget.

HOW TO DRINK PROPERLY was launched based off this idea in February 2014 with a sophisticated series of animated web-films.

They introduced a suave, aspirational figurehead that bestowed cheeky words of wisdom upon amateur drinkers - instructing about two ways to drink: the ‘proper’ way, or the embarrassing way.

Initial press releases and social seeding helped drive attention to the film content, and was designed to incite conversation around our approach.

The tone of our character, championing moderation as ‘the realm of drinking excellence’, or relaying how getting ‘fuckeyed’ can damage your reputation, was designed to speak the language of our target, but importantly also draw media attention to the controversial tone.

All campaign touch points of the execution, being outdoor, digital, and social networks, were designed to be shared, commented on, and discussed amongst peers and public – all helping to start the conversation and get ‘proper drinking’ talked about.

We got youth moderation debated across Australia on national TV, radio, press, social and online channels within a week. We generated 58.7 million media impressions, 75% of which were earned and reached 90% of all Australian 18–24 year olds via Facebook.

We incited 12,000+ social media conversations with 87% positive sentiment and got 18-24yr olds to, praise, endorse and defend our message for us. They took ownership of the message, spreading it amongst friends with 9,272 ‘tagging’ their friends that could use the ‘classy’ advice and 29, 349 sharing it.

Having generated 43 million earned media impressions with an earned media value of $1.43 million, we reached our goal of getting a credible, youth-supported message about moderation into public view.

Our message continues to grow and engage at record levels, making it the most influential anti-drinking campaign in Australia to date.

How To Drink Properly, effectively stopping a nation from getting shitfaced.