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Think, don’t Drink! : Pro-active involvement of target groups in information campaigns

Problems/challenges
  • Change of attitude in order to increase ambition and health

Solutions
  • User generated content video’s, use of multimedia

Barriers
  • History, (change of) culture and habits

Tools
  • Roadmap for creating user generated video productions in the field of social problems

Problems and challenges

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In rural areas (although not exclusively) we have to deal with social issues. Often, these issues are addressed through education / information by and from professionals. The question is whether this way of communication is effective. In this project we tried a different approach, one where the audience or target group is involved.

The goal of 'Think, don’t drink' was to raise, describe and discuss alcohol abuse among young people in Northeast Fryslân.

In the region North East Fryslân the use of alcohol is an established phenomenon. Not only adults (parents) drink alcohol, but also young people and in recent years more and more young people start to drink alcohol a (too) young age. Drinking alcohol regularly is considered "normal", is part of the culture in this region. The question was: how can we influence the behaviour of young people?

Solutions

Young people in the age of 12-18 years old, made 4 anti-alcohol commercials with and guided by students of students of Stenden (Training Media & Entertainment Management) and a video production company. Youngster created their own "user generated content. This makes this approach special: the involvement of the target group. By involving them in the whole process and the content processing, it becomes “their” project and their “product”. This enhances the chance that they will spread the product (the films) among their friends. A media campaign has taken place using social media (facebook, Twitter, Youtube) and the local broadcast company. These multi-media channels fit in with the perception of the target group and have a broad regional audience. The release of the movies has been accompanied by a contest. The answers could be found on the internet. This quest for answers led the participants to different pages with useful information about alcohol consumption.

Barriers

We weren’t confronted with severe barriers, but we can mention a few points of attention. If you want to execute a project like this, you have to take in account that the videos needs to be of a good quality (professional look and feel); not a kind of “home video”, good script and good actors, even if they are amateurs. The choice of social media needs to correspond with the target group: do they use Hyves, Twitter or Facebook and in what way? That depends on age, the issue involved ànd this may change in time.

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Tools

- Project plan - Co-creation as a systematic approach: with youngsters for youngsters (must still be documented) – peer based information - Documentation of the process (the process is the tool) = a concept