Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Executive Summary
The communication plan at hand was subject in the course of the seminar
Marketing Communications within the Master of Science program in Marketing
at Vienna University of Economics and Business in cooperation with the Centre of
Multidisciplinary Prevention.
The Centre of Multidisciplinary Prevention aims at obviating addiction-related
consumer behavior such as alcohol-, tobacco- or drug consumption. Its goal is to
actively contribute to the psychological and social health in Austria. To raise
awareness for the negative consequences of alcohol consumption among the
target group of interest, 10-14 years old kids, and to decrease its current
consumption level, an innovative communication plan has been developed. To
best capture the target groups attention and cause rethinking regarding alcohol
consumption, extensive primary and secondary research has been conducted.
Based on those insides, a communication strategy with the central icon of a
sports bottle, and a peer group namely the Water Club, as a holistic yet
appealing alternative to alcohol suitable for being applied in various situations,
has been developed. Rooted in psychological research that highlights the
importance of belonging to a group, especially in the target groups age, the
Water Club features four different characters with distinct characteristics that
facilitates identification and allows active engagement on various channels.
Status Quo
The Austrian Market
Approximately 5% of the entire Austrian population elicit alcohol dependency,
with 13% engaging in alcohol intake in life-threatening quantities (World Health
Organization, 2014a). It is also notable that approximately 32% and 26% of girls
and boys, respectively, aged 15 years take alcohol at least once every week.
Alcohol use and abuse is the cause of about 8000 deaths every year in Austria,
representing 10% of the Austrian mortality rate (WHO, 2014b). Equally,
approximately 100 deaths every year are attributed to acute alcohol intoxication.
Socially, the primary cause of domestic violence is alcohol and alcohol related
inductions (30%), while alcohol addicts are exposed to a reduced life expectancy
pilot
project
Alcohol
2020
of
Wiener
Gebietskrankenkasse,
Goal Statement
Based upon the identified need for an effective prevention on alcoholism tailored
to the needs of kids between 10 and 14 years, the objective of the
communication strategy and media plan is to develop a new identity of alcohol
prevention campaigns. First of all, the communication campaign is designed to
catch the attention of the target group, generate awareness for alcohol
prevention and deliver subtle educational content in a playful and engaging
manner (user generated content) by applying relevant psychological insights.
Contrary to the tenor of existing anti-alcohol campaigns in Europe 1, the
communication campaign at hand does not stress plain facts and terrifying
1 See Appendix
Campaign Strategy
The campaign strategy is based on extensive primary and secondary research.
Theoretical insights are used as a conceptual foundation for the campaign and
will help to ensure that the campaign message guides individuals through the
process of attitude and behavioral change. Due to the heterogeneity of the target
group, it will be split into two subgroups (kids = 10-12 years; teens = 13-14
years) based on important characteristics such as experience with alcohol or
personality. Thus, a targeted and likely to be effective message design can be
created. The messages will be placed in channels that are widely viewed by the
target audience and thereby enables a strategic position of the campaign
messages within the selected channels, taking care of the target group split.
2http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/menschen_und_gesellschaft/bevoelkerung/bevoelkeru
ngsstruktur/bevoelkerung_nach_alter_geschlecht/index.html
3 For a more detailed description of the personas see Appendix.
several options are offered, e.g. to invent the most creative refusal skill, to find
out which character is most similar to ones own person or to submit suggestions
which adventures the protagonists should face next.
Moreover, the eye-catching logo of the Water Club symbolizes a multifunctional
bottle for non-alcoholic beverages. The perfect shape of the bottle as been
elicited with focus group interviews and the most popular bottle among the
target group will be produced and sponsored at school and sport events. It
intents to communicate the non-alcoholic alternative as it is strongly associated
with sports and water. As kids find it cool to use the English language, the slogan
is Stay Cool. The Water Club, which is still easy to understand, communicate
and relates to the commonly faced problem to refuse alcoholic offers by
suggesting to stay cool and rather drink water (or any other non-alcoholic
beverage). In a nutshell, the campaign does not stigmatize alcohol but focuses
on empowerment and self-esteem by the means of storytelling that enables a
strong identification of the audience with the protagonists and thereby
encourages an active dialogue. As the budget will be restricted to 500,000, the
focus lies on the usage of social media and user-generated content, print
brochures and the production of the Water Club bottles.
KPIs
In order to assess the achievement of the campaigns goals to raise awareness
towards alcohol prevention, significantly raise the starting age for alcohol
consumption and decrease the level of consumption by 10% until the end of
2016, several quantitative and quality measurements need to be considered.
High message exposure among members of the target group, that include both
frequency and reach, is aimed. The change in awareness towards the prevention
campaign can be assessed by considering online metrics as Facebook likes of the
Water Club fanpage, YouTube clicks of the campaigns channel or unique visitors
of the website. In addition, the engagement of the target group can be measured
by counting submitted suggestions of how the story of the Water Club should
continue or the most creative submitted refusal skills. For the first six months
after the launch, 12,000 Facebook likes, 8,000 clicks on YouTube, 10,000 unique
webpage visitors and 900 submissions are expected. Regarding a qualitative
Sources:
Lancet2005;365:51930
CentreforSocialResearchonAlcoholandDrugs,StockholmUniversity,Stockholm,Sweden(RRoom);Departmentof
CommunityMedicineandHealthCare,UniversityofConnecticutSchoolofMedicine,Farmington,CT,USA(TBabor);
AddictionResearchInstitute,Zrich,Switzerland
(JRehm);andCentreforAddictionandMentalHealth,Toronto,Canada(JRehm)
Lancet.Authormanuscript;availableinPMC2014December01.
Publishedinfinaleditedformas:Lancet.2010October9;376(9748):12611271.
doi:10.1016/S01406736(10)608094.
With alcohol consumption of about 12.2 litres per person per year, Austria
ranks third highest in the EU, only behind Lithuania (12.7) and Estonia
(12.3). What is more, alcohol is the most common form of addiction in
Austria, as nearly 200.00 people according to a new survey from GfK are
consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. However, according to the OECD
(2013), it must be noted, that the consumption has been relatively steady
for the past 10 years!