Queensland is the Sunshine State of Australia. It’s also the skin cancer capital of the world. Millions are spent on sun safety messaging, yet skin cancer cases continue to rise, particularly amongst younger people.

BRIEF

Emphasize the gravity of the risk of ignoring sun safe behaviours for 18 to 34-year-olds and increase the perceived personal relevancy of protective behaviours for modifying risk.

OBJECTIVES

Encourage our audience to reduce UV exposure and sunburn rates and help reduce the incidence of skin cancer.

Increase the proportion of Queenslanders who:

- agree that sun protection is needed every day in Queensland

- agree campaign was personally relevant to them

- agree campaign made them realise there are things they can do to reduce their risk of skin cancer

- intend to practise more sun safe behaviours more often as a result of seeing the campaign

We created sun safety messages disguised as a horror movie launch campaign. People thought they were watching trailers for an upcoming film in which a group of four friends head on holiday to the Sunshine State. Their fun weekend away turns into a nightmare as their irresponsible sun behaviours come back to haunt them – in a series of mini-stories punctuated by various horror movie tropes.

But these spine-chilling movie trailers and posters were actually using cutting-edge neuroscience and the links between dopamine spikes in the brain and habit learning to change people’s sun safe behaviours.

With every dopamine spike we were able to sear the 5 sun safe behaviours into the minds of our viewers.

TARGET AUDIENCE

18-34 year old Queenslanders. Melanoma is their most diagnosed cancer and common cause of cancer death. They understand the dangers and know how to protect themselves. Yet they don’t do it.

INTEGRATION

Our integrated approach followed our audience around – just like the sun. On weather apps before going out. On social platforms when they’re out and about. And out of home to reinforce the messaging in the sunshine.

APPROACH

We hijacked the science of horror movies to beat the horror of skin cancer. People thought they were watching spine-chilling movie trailers, but we were using cutting-edge neuroscience to change their sun safe behaviours.

When people watch scary movies their dopamine levels spike, making them more receptive to neurochemically conditioned behaviour change. This allowed us to sear the 5 S’s of Sun Safety into the minds of our younger audience.

*Reference: “Dopamine, learning and motivation” by R. Weiss

We launched our campaign like a real horror film with a series of trailers that appeared to be scenes from an upcoming cinema release. But each trailer revealed the sun as a real killer you can avoid by adopting sun safe behaviours. The campaign mirrored the media our target audience actively used. The trailers ran specifically when the message would be most relevant: during daylight hours.

IMPLEMENTATION

Online video

Social Films (Meta & Snapchat)

OOH (Small Format and Large Format)

Spotify

Weatherzone – Static

TIMELINE

Summer (4 December 2023 to February 2024)

PLACEMENT

Online Video

Social Video & Static Posts: Instagram, Snapchat

Digital and Broadcast Radio

OOH: Small & Large Format

Website: Qld Health Landing Page

SCALE

Queensland only

Budget: Approx $900k total including media

The campaign has only been live in market 7 weeks, so the long-term behavioural change will only be able to be measured over the next few years. Already the results have outperformed any previous campaign trying to create sun safe behavior change in the 18-34 year old demographic.

In just 7 weeks we have achieved:

- 371,200 completed views across various platforms including YouTube, Facebook, online video and digital display (Note: 18-34 year olds represent approx 21.52% of Queensland’s 5.5 million total population).

- 94.2% video completion rate on YouTube.

The campaign has attracted significant attention in social media and is a rare campaign that’s already becoming part of culture:

“Where can I watch this movie?” - Peter Burns

“This is completely brilliant. Will share with my teenage kids. Love it.” – Eliza French

“Gold. A great approach to delivering a serious message.” - Tanya Liebrecht