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Drink less, be more

Our ‘Drink less, be more’ campaign for January 2010 tapped into the national desire to lose weight, get fit and feel better after the festive season. The campaign built on the success of our ‘What’s Britain drinking this Christmas?’ campaign, making use of a custom-designed interactive unit calculator on the Drinkaware website homepage and wider online and offline promotion. The aim was to raise awareness of units and unit guidelines by making users aware of the effects of alcohol on their health and wellbeing.

What we did

We asked the UK ‘What do you want in 2010?’ and depending on the answer that users gave us, we provided useful tips and information about how drinking can hamper their New Year’s resolutions.

Drink less, be more campaign image

PR and online activity worked together to drive users to a new-look version of the Drinkaware unit calculator, which asked users what they drink in a typical night and gave feedback tailored to their personal motivations. The unit calculator appeared on the homepage of the Drinkaware website, as well as within online adverts that appeared on health- and fitness-related websites. We also ran promotional activity in Heat magazine and on the Heart radio network, which helped to drive record levels of traffic to the Drinkaware website.

Users that took part in the campaign could also sign up to a series of motivational emails, featuring recipes from celebrity chef Theo Randall, fitness tips from ‘personal trainer to the stars’ Lucy Wyndham-Read and real-life stories on the benefits of cutting back on alcohol.

Participation

More than 17,000 people got involved in the campaign, including more than 10,000 who calculated their units via the website and 2,290 who signed up to our Drink Diary to monitor their drinking over a longer period. Users were given interesting feedback on their drinking habits, including the calorific value of their alcohol consumption and its equivalents in junk food.

Results

The campaign was a success, with thousands of people getting involved directly and a wide spread of national, regional, broadcast and online coverage. Highlights included features on ITV News and Sky News; the Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph and Metro; Lincolnshire Echo, Express and Star; and Glasgow Evening Times as well as the Sun Online, Mirror.co.uk, Yahoo and Closer.co.uk.

Accompanying the campaign was a full-page advertorial in Heat magazine and a week long series of adverts running across five stations on the Heart Radio network. This activity had a combined reach of almost 2.5 million people.

Understanding unit guidelines

You should not regularly exceed…

Women: 2–3 units daily
Men: 3–4 units daily

The government advises that women should not regularly drink more than the daily unit guidelines of 2–3 units, or…

3 × 25ml shots of whiskey
1.3 × 175ml glasses of white wine
1.3 pints of 4% lager

The government advises that men should not regularly drink more than the daily unit guidelines of 3–4 units, or…

4 × 25ml shots of whiskey
1.7 × 175ml glasses of white wine
1.7 pints of 4% lager