Encouraging sensible drinking - our students take the campaign viral
Following our students’ highly regarded poster campaign for Alcohol Awareness Week last year, our BA (Hons) Graphic Design Illustration & Digital Media students have once again teamed up with Bradford Council to promote the sensible drinking message to other young people.
Last year they produced work in response to the findings of local youth workers dealing with the problems at street level, while this year they have been set a brief based on research by Bradford University Psychology Lecturer, Dr John McAlaney. This suggests that simply raising awareness of the harm caused by alcohol is not enough, as there is no evidence to suggest that this leads to healthier drinking patterns as people, especially young adults, tend to overestimate rates of alcohol use in others. Dr McAlaney believes that if these misperceptions about the behaviour of others are corrected, then the pressure on the young adults to misuse substances themselves is lowered and rates of use in the target group fall. This approach has been adopted by American health education programmes with more success than traditional fear based misuse campaigns.
With this in mind, the students had to produce thought and attention provoking campaign material to encourage sensible drinking, designed to challenge the target group of local male and female drinkers, aged between eighteen and twenty-five. The students also had to devise viral marketing strategies to ensure their messages reached the maximum number of people and this reach, and impact on viewers' perceptions will be closely monitored via a short survey devised by Dr McAlaney.
While the survey results will be analysed, since the students whose videos and images are showcased here are all in the target age group, we asked them about their impressions about the campaign and they each offered very different perspectives and some thought provoking comments, which you can see along with their work. We want to get everyone thinking about alcohol awareness and joining in this conversation. Please view the work of our students on the following pages, give your feedback by following the survey link and forward those you like to your friends. Each survey completed before the end of October 2011 will be entered into a prize draw to win a £20 Amazon voucher.