The Brand Agency’s confronting alcohol and cancer campaign launches tonight in Perth
The Brand Agency in Perth has produced a new advertising campaign for the Drug and Alcohol Office of WA that pulls no punches in pointing out the direct link between alcohol and cancer.
The campaign begins tonight (Sunday May 16) in Western Australia on free to air television and is supported by press and out of home media.
VIEW THE SPOTS:
The creative execution dramatises the spread of alcohol through thebody and the damage it causes with the use of wine stains spreadingacross a tablecloth. Working with trans-Tasman production company FilmConstruction and director Andy Morton, the television commercials wereshot on film, using the macro Frazier lens system. NZ Visual effects and animation studio Oktobor brought the ad to life by painstakinglypiecing together every element captured during the shoot.
“When we were developing the campaign strategy, we looked to see whathad been done before and found that no-one had ever made the directlink between alcohol and cancer,” says The Brand Agency account director Pia McMorran.
“The World Health Organization has classified alcohol as a Group 1carcinogen, which puts it in the same class as tobacco smoke andasbestos. So the simple message is even if you’re only having a fewwines or beers over dinner each night, you are at risk of cancer. Thisis a very important health message that everyone deserves to know, butthere’s no doubt it’s controversial and is not one that a lot of peoplewill want to hear.
“These ads are part of the Drug and Alcohol Office’s Alcohol ThinkAgain campaign, and are a new direction for the category becauseprevention campaigns have traditionally focused on the behaviouraleffects, with a skew towards binge drinkers.”
CreativeDirector: Craig Buchanan
Copywriter: Des Hameister/James Wills
ArtDirector: Craig Buchanan/David Donald
Agency Producer: Kate Downie
Account Director: Pia McMorran
Strategic Planner: Corvette Cross
Director: Andy Morton
Production Company: Film Construction
Producer: Roi MacGregor
Artist: Luke Hollis
Post Production: Oktobor
Sound Production: LiquidStudios
38 Comments
This whole strategy is bollocks. The risk is negligible.
How many moderate drinkers have you ever known to die of cancer that is linked to alcohol?
Or for that matter, even heavy drinkers?
Crossing the road has a higher risk attached to it.
Steve nailed it.
Complete nonsense.
Waste of money.
The Brand Agency = fail Perth
@Steve
Yes, but crossing the road wasn’t the brief now was it?
The ad isn’t amazing or anything, but I thought the craft was good.
The craft is nice, but a waste of taxpayers money.
Of course no-one’s worked that strategy before.
As Steve says, it’s complete and utter bollocks. No-one will believe it, and no-one will change their behaviour as a result.
A complete and utter fucking waste of taxpayer’s money. A hint to the planners: if no-one’s ever used a strategy before, do a bit of sense-checking to figure out why. Because while there’s a 5% chance you’ve stumbled onto something utterly brilliant, there’s a 95% chance you’re about to write a brief that validates exactly WHY that strategy hasn’t been used before.
Very dramatic, but really, 7:22 has a point. It’s a massively overblown claim with little credibility. They’ve used a sledgehammer to crack a shelled peanut.
Oh Stephen your language is far too polished for this blog.
I know several people who died from cancer of the liver, one also crossed the road quite frequently – the nearest pub was opposite his house.
Isn’t red wine supposed to be good for you?
Steve says, ‘the risk is negligible”. Care to back that up Steve?
Poo. Nicely made poo. But poo nevertheless.
Negligible? More Aussies die of alcohol-caused cancer each year than drink driving. And how much money do governments pour into dd campaigns?
nice commercial, beautiful art direction, it will create a lot of debate which is probably the aim.
Not good.
The strategy is wrong, the execution pretty flat.
What Perth needs is an influx of good creatives and planners, shake the place up a bit and show ’em how it’s done.
10pm.
Well if that’s the case, then that is what the ad should have been about.
I think the amount of comments calling this bullshit is exactly why this ad needs to run nationally.
We all think it’s fine to slam back 15 drinks on a Friday and a possibly “a couple” (3 to 5 or 6) after work every day. There are things such as Cirrhosis of the Liver amongst a whole range of other diseases that unfortunately are way too real.
People get these diseases. If you get it, something as simple as having a beer at christmas can turn into a messy, horribly fucked up thing. I know. It happened to my father, and he never drank ‘the hard stuff’ like spirits or cocktails.
I’m shocked at peoples lack of knowledge here, especially for an industry full of social alcoholics.
all the binge drinking alchies are getting defensive on here
If drinking causes cancer why isn’t there warnings on the bottle?
this will work. confronting, lovely production values, clear message take-out, engaging, good job.
I wonder if the Shroud of Turin was an intentional visual reference here.
It certainly adds a religious gravity to the message.
@9:30 – people probably said the same thing about ciggies in 1970.
longest 30 seconds of my life.
Alcohol is the new tobacco.
Interesting that an anti-alcohol abuse concept in an ad industry forum has generated much more criticism of its content, than it’s creative execution. Note the ad doesn’t say stop drinking – just no more than 2 a day, which is a widely accepted norm. Cancer is just one possible side-effect, but honestly, can anyone begrudge a message that promotes healthier levels of consumption – especially in the context of our industry?
Australians in general consume far too much alcohol. We are a wipeout nation, if you compare us to many other developed countries in the Western world. We point the finger at ‘drugs’ and say they are to blame, but sorry, alcohol is a drug. And sorry again, but our industry not only spikes those stats, it has done little or nothing (except in the pursuit of award-winning executions) to help the problem.
So suck it up.The message, not the contents of the bottle.
@1145 – Alcohol has been around as long as, if not longer than ciggies. Are we only just making this link now?
Chemically enhanced food changes cells too, resulting in cancer (?) or large breasted teenage girls. Someone should make an ad…
Why was something for WA made in NZ?
Interested in the truth behind these claims, I did some research (unlike those that comment blindly) and found The World Health Organisation has classified alcohol as a group 1 carcinogen. The sceptics of this are more than likely the same people that were sceptical of tobacco and cancer.
I wanted it to be crap.
But it is not.
Far from it.
The glow is now dangerous.
Well done all.
Dammit!
I get the point. Job done
Silica Dioxide is also listed as a Class 1 carcinogen. It’s commonly used as a flow-agent in powdered foods.
So is Soot, which is in the air all around us.
So are X-rays.
Benzine, which is in paint.
Cadmium, in solder.
Ethelyne Oxide, which is used as a ripening agent in fruit.
Pretty much every second fucking thing in modern society can give us cancer. Best we should make scary ads about them.
Everything gives you cancer.
Most of these things don’t provide as much enjoyment as booze and cigarettes.
So get the fuck out of my smoking, drinking, snorting face.
Time for The Brand CDs to retire…
Is there any truth in the rumour that there are to be new Confronting TV, Best Use of Confrontation and Confrontational Craft categories added to the next PADC awards?
Ice is the new alcohol
The arena of dependence counseling has fought with how to understand and treat addiction for decades. For some, dependence is better comprehended as a disease that can react to the standardized treatment of detox, group work and self-help programmes, AA in particular, that stress mainly on addictive conduct. For others, addiction is a behavior driven by rudimentary disputes and issues that demand to be handled in a treatment process designed for every sole, one that addresses his/her unique basic psychological dynamics.
The government wastes so much of our money on advising us how to live our lives. Just off the top of my head heres a list of government sponsored adverts I’ve seen…
– Dont go out in the sunshine without a hat, shirt and sunscreen.
– Dont get drunk and start fights.
– Dont drive when you’ve been drinking.
– Wear a seatbelt
– Do 5 kmh less when driving.
– Dont smoke.
– Dont do drugs.
– Eat your veggies.
– Cover your mouth when you cough.
– Dont have more than 2 alcoholic drinks on any day.
– Wear condoms when having sex.
I predict the next adverts will be: Dont run with sharp objects, and Be good to your mother.
Do we really need the government to hold our hands?