Australians urged to examine COVID-19 drinking habits in new integrated campaign from the Alcohol and Drug Foundation via Icon Agency
Icon Agency has joined forces with the Alcohol and Drug Foundation for a new national health campaign aiming to tackle COVID-19 drinking. As lead integration agency, Icon worked closely with creative team Campaign Edge and media planner Atomic Media to implement a multi-channel strategy across earned, paid, owned and shared media.
Funded by the Australian Government, Break the Habit highlights that it takes only around 66 days on average to form a habit – roughly the same amount of time many Australians spent in lockdown.
It’s a fact most Aussies are unaware of, with a poll coordinated by Icon Agency on behalf of the Alcohol and Drug Foundation showing that fewer than 10 per cent of Australians were able to accurately estimate how long it takes to form a habit.
The survey of 1,000 Australians also revealed nearly one in five Australians wish they had drunk less alcohol during the lockdown and that a similar number, nearly 20 per cent, want to reduce the amount of alcohol they’ve been consuming recently.
The including Professor Terry Bowles, a University of Melbourne habit formation expert, and a case study of a Victorian mum who went from only drinking on weekends or special occasions, to drinking daily during lockdown but decided to break that habit, the campaign launched on Sunday using PR to drive widespread earned media coverage.
Within its first 48 hours in market, Break the Habit secured a reach of over 250 million across news and broadcast media, including coverage in the Sunday Herald Sun, West Australian, AAP syndication and dedicated packages across 9 News and 10 News nationwide, Today and Studio 10.
Targeted at Australians aged 21-51 living in metro regions, the campaign highlights that even small increases to the amount of alcohol you can drink can become harder to shift over time. It encourages people to consider their recent drinking patterns, help them recognise any problem signs and what to do to turn them around.
Matt Thomas, Icon Agency’s head of public relations, said the Campaign Edge TVC used an animated creature to represent the little habit of drinking more than usual that some Australians picked up during lockdown: “Based on a growing data pool that many Australians increased their alcohol consumption during the coronavirus lockdown, this was an important topic that needed to be approached in a targeted and timely manner.
“Understanding the ways in which Australians have responded to the pandemic thus far and the impact ongoing uncertainty is having on them was central to developing our behaviour change methodology to support the amplification of this campaign across media relations, influencers, stakeholder amplification and social.
“Our ambition was to reach as many as Australians as possible with a high-impact launch. Leveraging Campaign Edge’s advertising and key campaign insight, we armed ourselves with a media kit jam-packed with video news releases, case study B-roll and extensive new data, pre-empting what media might ask for and understanding the current landscape compromising usual newsroom resources.”
Icon Agency will continue to roll out the campaign across earned, paid, owned and shared content channels until mid-September.
For more information on the Break the Habit campaign, visit: https://littlehabit.com.au.
Client – Alcohol and Drug Foundation
Head of Marketing and Communications: Cinzia Marrocco
Marketing Manager: Petra Keckeisen
Communications Manager: Kelly Ward
Media Manager: Carmel Green
Digital Marketing specialist: Sakina Saxena
Senior Campaign Coordinator – Rebecca Martinelli
Integration agency – Icon Agency
Strategy and integration lead
Head of Public Relations: Matt Thomas
Media and stakeholder relations
Associate Account Director: Sophia Pellatt
Account Manager: Rebecca Peck
Account Coordinator: Annie McBrearty
Influencer engagement
Account Director: Fiona Miller
Account Executive: Robyn Rigoli
Social Media
Group Account Director: Hazel Tiernan
Creative strategy: Emily Naismith
Junior Account Director: Jo Raine
Senior Designer: Mark Oriondo
Account Executive: Alex Tanner
Creative agency – Campaign Edge
ECD/Writer: Dee Madigan
Art Director: Samantha Harley
Managing Director: Stuart Gillies
Account Director: Ari Margossian
Production Company: Edge Studios
Director: Simon ‘Mo’ Macrae
Post Production: Cutting Edge
Digital: Paul Judge, Jayden Anderson
Media Agency – Atomic Media
Managing Director – Claire Fenner
General Manager – Rory Heffernan
Strategy Director – Asier Carazo
Head of Client Service – Sarah O’Leary
Planning & Trading Director – Devon Roberts
Performance Director -Taylor Suen
Planning & Trading Manager – Anna Nguyen
Paid Social Media Manager – Elise Pektuzun
34 Comments
Look, drugs and alchohol are all I have left at this stage. Don’t take that away from me.
My glass is empty!
amirite
So…um… why is the PR agency given credit in the headline and not the agency who actually created the campaign?
I love a good PR release from a PR agency.
And this is a doozy.
But, reading between the many lines, didn’t they just take someone else’s idea and ‘leverage’ it?
Seems a flimsy claim to fame.
This disaster kept over 30 people in work.
Nice to see a Covid ad without the words uncertain times
‘Break the Habit secured a reach of over 250 million across news and broadcast media’
250million…. yeah nup.
The purple gremlin thing got dressed today, it deserves that drink.
Great see how smart PR can be used to amplify a campaign’s success. Old guard, welcome to the new reality where ideas come from all participants in the creative process – often led by integrated thinking and multi-channel capabilities. TV ad thinking is dead.
Wait, isn’t the concept of a bothersome companion just a rip off of the “Scare Away the Worry Monsters” campaign?
“A health scare can come with stress and constant worrying that begins to feel like you have a companion following you at all times, like your very own Worry Monster,” said VP of Marketing Adam Cooper.
https://www.andnowuknow.com/behind-greens/pom-wonderful-launches-multi-million-dollar-marketing-campaign-Adam-Cooper-Darren-Moran/lillie-apostolos/60178
Well, at least the Telegraph gave Campaign Edge full credit in their takedown this morning. 🙂
@Rob
That’s fine but did all those people you mention actually come up with the idea? You know what an idea is?
By “idea” I presume you’re referring to the character and TVC? It’s a great idea for sure and kudos the the creative agency behind it.
My point is old ad-world hero ad thinking places emphasis and success on a single idea (which is of course important) rather than the multitude of people and ideas that go into a successful campaign – including client insights and guidance, strategies for PR, media relations, social profiling and platform targeting, long and short-form copywriting, data collection and analysis, landing pages designed for clarity and education, media buying. The list goes on and on.
All I’m saying, and with the greatest of respect if you’re a creative, is that single-play creative agencies have a habit of thinking their role is the most important part of the process. IMHO it’s old world thinking and comes across as precious. It also overlooks the other 99% of effort required to make a behaviour change campaign successful. These are “all those people”.
It’s an interesting conversation and challenge Mel so I’m happy to hear more.
@Rob Mad
If the PR company thought of the idea of physicalising a bad habit into a purple creature then they can lay claim to this. Otherwise your comment about Tv thinking is so misguided and borderline unethical I can’t even believe it… I presume you’re on the business side of things, you’re hiding behind trendy notions of ‘integrated’ thinking and other modern jargon when you either don’t understand the value of an idea, or what an idea is, or or just don’t care if you steal one and claim it (more likely). I don’t even particularly like this idea and its certainly not new, but your comments just show up your ignorance of the process of creating something. (Apologies if the PR company did, in fact, think of the purple creature, I take all this back…)
Hey @Tim from Tim
With respect – Not my idea. Not trying to “steal one and claim it”. Full kudos to the creatives. Just trying to point out a campaign idea/concept (which is incredibly important) is probably 1% of the effort and 10% of the success for an integrated behaviour change campaign. Happy to debate the concept of “integrated” as trendy or jargonistic, and hear your thoughts on this.
I’ve worked with behaviour change psychologists, creatives, analysts and UX theorists to measure the actual impact an “idea” has compared to an ecosystem encompassing an engagement strategy, channel plan, PR and media relations, comms, programmatic targeting, ESL adaptation, etc. I’m decades into this journey, and based on the research and statistics I’m not convinced the value of an idea is more important than the execution.
MD of Icon here and happy to use my own name.
I have been observing with great amusement the cacophony of indignation and hubris in response to our (client approved) media release. I am a great admirer of creatives, just as I am an admirer or storytellers, PRs, behavioural planners, digital experience designers and strategic channel planners. All of these skills went into making this campaign – and yes, most of these skills were led and deployed by the lead integration agency, Icon.
Unlike the tired, dinosaur models that many old-school creatives like to cling to, our approach is collaborative and multi-channel. Likewise, public statements on our work acknowledge all contributors (a notable difference from another statement about the campaign doing the rounds).
Campaign Edge should be commended for a great idea. Icon should be commended for taking that idea and brining it to life across earned, owned, paid and shared. And let’s not forget the terrific media team at Atomic, the incredible smarts of The Lab, and last but not least the client who put their faith in all of us to deliver.
So folks, pull your heads in and take a deep breath. You may not like to have to share the sand pit but that ship has sailed.
Cute monster.
It’s only a few months later and they’re already chiding people for drinking more during, yes, ‘unprecedented’ isolation and social fragmentation. 20% of people wishing they’d had less to drink is a pretty small number given the circumstances, in a wider context where Australians are drinking less than ever before anyway.
Why then does this release, like all releases lead with the TVC and then show some posters?
1% of the effort eh? I’d love to have you in my creative dept for some “work experience” – you’d probably be crying in a corner by lunchtime after your 1% effort trying to crack at brief in a way that’s never been done before, that’s on brief, that the client will like, that your boss will like, that has enough ‘legs’ to be picked up and run with by the PR agency etc etc.
You strike me as rather myopic and clueless.
Love this 🙂 I’ve been in the room with and for creatives for over 20 years. And I’ve participated in the sleepless nights and mind-breaking effort needed to crack an idea. I’ve also proudly cried when we hit that moment of brilliance, or lost a brave idea to a nervous client.
All your defensiveness does is reaffirms my position that many creative departments (not all) consider their work to be more important than the multitude of talent and creative thinking that goes into a campaign.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be in there fighting for your department and their ideas buddy. It’s commendable and I’d hire you on that basis. But you wouldn’t last long if you were working against the spirit of a fully integrated team (and I’m not just talking about PR here).
Calling someone “myopic and clueless” as your closing argument just outs you as a bully. Come at me as hard as you like, but I reckon these are important topics that need to be discussed as we drive our industry forward.
BTW – creative industry publications lead with TVCs and posters because that’s what they ask for when publishing releases. Behavioural scientists want to see user analytics and biometrics in journals and papers. Communications professionals want to understand reach and sentiment, UX designers want to see defined personas and drop-off points. Pick a camp, or be interested in every idea and person involved in driving success.
Yeah Karen put the Savvy B away and wear a mask.
Great Previs. Can’t wait to see the character with light & Render.
Be great once its integrated and finished.
Cutting Edge Strikes Again.
Rob, so you contend that ‘99% of the effort’ equals getting the campaign into those newspapers mentioned, the Herald Sun, etc and figuring out the programatic buy and how to target the right people and measuring the response?
Of course I’m not saying that isn’t important or that its not a lot of effort but you can see why no one thinks of it as the heart of the campaign because that process happens with most campaigns and its fairly mechanical or at least logical. The strategy here seems pretty logical too, and a well publicised problem. It’s not the differentiated bit of thinking that you would use to describe the campaign to your friends.
There’s no bit in that press release where I go, wow what a great PR angle. (Maybe there is some new bit of thinking I’m missing or wasn’t explained.)
On the other hand there are PR campaigns where the PR is the heart of the campaign. Where the story fed to , say, a newspaper is in itself the idea. It might sound like… well what we did was told the newspapers/internet ‘xxx’ and all hell broke loose.
Hi Rob.
Just reading your earlier comment again about ideas not being so important, but rather execution (by which you kind of mean media placement and PR and measurement).
So your research would say that -take an ad like Guinness ‘surfer’ as an example- you could just slot any ad for Guinness in its place and get the same result as long as you ‘executed’ into the world the same way? Genuinely wondering?
I’m sorry, but you don’t know shit about creative. Even if you are a big mouth. Clearly it’s one of the few campaigns, that has actually aired, that you’ve had anything to do with. Your defensiveness is offensiveness.
That Idea was good the first 10 times it was done. I think Spring Valley ripped it off first about 10 years ago?
Would you be here, if they weren’t?
The little monster looks like the rehab version of the sensible campaign for smart water yonkers ago
This guy has unironically stated that he believes that ‘the idea is only 1% of the effort of a campaign’ on a public forum and put his name to it.
Incredible.
probs 1% effort given the idea is a rehash of so many other campaigns. original thinking and ideas would obvs take a lot longer
well done on more shite. and by the way those photographs look like they’ve been lit by a student in 1995 . hello its 2020 , ya might wanna start using someone under the age of 50
Get over yourselves. It’s an ad, no one cares about your comment.
Too much drinking and driving on the roads. I would rather be out of business than deal with all the road accidents.
https://www.bjtowingadelaide.com
Little turns into BIG. ‘See what I did there? It works every time, if you’re a crap writer.