Drinkaware's work with under 18s

Have fun. Be careful
The ultimate day competition

Have fun. Be careful

Drinkaware and sexual health charity Brook joined forces over Christmas and the New Year to distribute packs to young people, providing them with information about alcohol, sexual health and personal safety.

As well as receiving a campaign pack, including a condom, bus pass holder and mobile phone credit, 16 and 17 year olds also received a text message on New Year's Eve, reminding them to 'Have fun' and 'Be careful'.

15,000 packs were distributed to seven pilot areas (Bolton, Belfast, Birmingham, Stockton-on-Tees, Inverness, Liverpool and Croydon) in colleges, youth organisations, Brook Centres and via Brook outreach workers.

1,926 participants registered for the mobile phone credit and messages (about 15% take up). A similar campaign carried out by Coca Cola, who distributed an offer via 32 million cans, only received a 4% uptake.

Young people wanting more information were directed to a campaign page on the Brook website. This received 1,810 unique views, with the majority of referrals coming through Facebook, direct from the packs or from Drinkaware.co.uk.

The campaign activity received very positive feedback from both 16-17 year olds and professionals working with young people. All requested that we run this again next year but with wider coverage. Many requests were received from outside the pilot areas asking to take part.

Reaching a campaign's audience through mobile technology is still new and newsworthy, which meant the campaign got coverage in The Sun newspaper and online coverage on The Sun’s website as well as the Youth Parliament, Gossip Blender and Sugarscape websites. The use of the mobile mechanic was in fact a first outside of the commercial sector.

The ultimate day competition 

We launched ‘The ultimate day’ at the start of the 2009 summer holidays, to give five lucky 16-17 year olds – and up to three of their mates – the chance to win their dream day out.

To be in with a chance of winning, entrants had to creatively demonstrate how they would spend their dream day without alcohol by either uploading a short video or photos to The ultimate day website.

The idea behind the competition came from a Drinkaware YouGov survey of 16-17 year olds where 51% of the young people interviewed said they get bored over the summer holidays and 29% said they drink alcohol regularly in the holidays because of boredom. We saw the Ultimate day competition as being a great way of getting the message across to young people that the best possible days can be had without alcohol.

The response over the weeks the competition ran was fantastic,giving visitors to The ultimate day site plenty of entries to vote for. We then went on to pick the winners from a shortlist of 20 entries, using a judging panel which included a young person plus members of Drinkaware and Frank PR.

As soon as the winners had been chosen, we got to work at making sure everything they had wanted in their ultimate days became reality.

Pampering sessions, photoshoots, backstage passes to concerts and helicopter rides were just some of the things we made possible for our winners.

Speaking at the end of his ultimate day, one of the five winners, Ollie said: “This has been the best prize in the world and I can’t believe how much we packed into one day! I could only choose three mates to come with me and all the rest were so jealous, especially as we got to travel everywhere in a luxury limo! I can’t choose a favourite bit but sky diving and having VIP tickets to see my favourite band were definitely up there for me.  We all had a great time, and it just proved that we don’t need alcohol to have fun – it was the best day ever!”

Another of the winners, Alex was just as enthusiastic about the dream day he had just lived out: "When I found out that I’d won my Ultimate day I was so excited and couldn’t imagine how we’d be able to fit in all the things I  wanted to do with my mates.  It was certainly an action packed day - from the moment the limo picked us up in the morning we were on the go; helicopter rides, indoor skydiving and go-karting!  Our day was topped off by a trip to Thorpe Park and we all loved every minute of it, though my favourite part was probably the helicopter ride. Alcohol isn’t an essential part of any day out and this prize certainly made us realise that. "

We learnt from running the competition how happy young people were to engage with the topic of having a good time without alcohol. We also believe that we achieved our objective of making young people realise that alcohol is not the answer to boredom.

Visit The ultimate day website to view the winners’ videos.

Page last updated by

Root User, 19 Apr 2010.

Page checked on

02 Mar 2010.