What the brand needed
Did you know that over half of all road deaths in South Africa are alcohol-related? Aware.org is an organisation dedicated to combatting this very serious issue. The organisation is predominantly funded by the alcohol industry and has over 360 corporate members and donors.
Over the past seven years, Aware.org has invested upwards of R450 million into curbing societal issues surrounding alcohol misuse.
Campaigns that focus on responsible drinking play a critical role in the fight against alcohol misuse. These types of campaigns remind South Africans that the risks are too great and that the line between a good night and a nightmare is as thin as one extra beer. A sentiment that’s more important than ever during the festive season.
Insights and execution
As with cigarette packaging and safe sex campaigns, South Africans ignore warnings, skip preachy videos, and are desensitised to death, especially over the holiday period when their minds are already on vacation.
But there is one thing they do fear: spending the holidays in a jail cell. So, we did what no other drunk-driving campaign has ever done; we went on holiday with them and showed up in the spaces they were looking.
‘Drunk Drivers Stay for Free’ was a guerrilla PR campaign that turned jail cells into holiday destinations. Because, for many drunk drivers over the festive season, that’s exactly where they’d end up.
In a complete departure from Aware.org’s usual paid media strategy, and as a first for South Africa, we turned to the platforms holidaymakers would browse for destinations and disguised jail cells as attractive vacation spots. We executed this by using innuendos, double meanings, and multi-layered illustrations.
We also only revealed our drunk-driving message halfway through the ‘offer’ description when it was too late for readers to skip over. Just like a roadblock, there was no way to avoid these disguised destinations because you never knew where the next one would be hiding and waiting to catch you.
For a message like this, repetition was key. So, we created dozens of cleverly camouflaged ads and hid them in plain sight. Our hiding spots included travel sites, destination billboards, radio ads, local newspapers, and even carefully crafted postcards to make sure we covered different demographics throughout the country.
We knew if the idea caught the attention of someone famous, word-of-mouth would do the rest. So, we approached influencers we knew would love the campaign’s cheeky writing. We were rewarded with shares from the likes of South African television presenter and actor Maps Maponyane (1.4m followers); internet personality Phil Mphela (550.4K followers); sports anchor Thomas Mlambo (871K followers); and award-winning influencer Lindo Myeni (110K followers). All of whom posted for free.
The results
Combining guerilla PR Tactics, innovative placements, and cleverly crafted creative, ‘Drunk Drivers Stay For Free’ became a never-before-seen kind of drunk driving campaign that changed the way Aware.org reached drunk drivers at the most crucial time of year- a South Africa first.
interactions with our deals on Daddy’s Deals.
Organic reach from Macro influencers showing these deals.
OOH Reach across 56 sites.
Earned media reach including Tier 1 publications.
Reach on National Radio Stations with 280K in free flightings.
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