spiritsNEWS March 2020

Spain – The power of partnership!

 

 

 

Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid and the Spanish Federation of Spirit Drinks – Espirituosos Spain – teamed up last year in their efforts to fight excessive alcohol consumption. To do so, a special contest was organized with university students in advertising and public relations to design their very own campaigns to promote responsible drinking.

As a first step, a big surprise! The students had to complete a survey about their perception of current drinking habits. The result? A huge discrepancy between perception and reality: while 90% believed young people drink too much, official data actually indicates that 95% of them adhere to responsible drinking behaviour. Next, the students were briefed on all relevant aspects of responsible drinking and visited a distillery to learn about distillation and the historical origins and traditions that have shaped spirit-making over the centuries.

At the end of the six-months design process for the campaigns, a jury, composed of marketing professional from the spirits sector, selected two winners.

The first campaign “Not too much” uses the concept of avoiding excess and applying moderation and common sense in day-to-day situations. The campaign consisted of four advertising posters that went on display in university campuses in Madrid and showed different situations in which excess can be harmful, as is the case with the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

No Way”, the second campaign, was designed to raise awareness about the need to prevent underage drinking. The campaign used a mixture of drawings and pictures to display situations with an obvious misfit. The decontextualization of objects served as an analogy to demonstrate that consumption by minors is equally out of place. The poster campaign featured on-street advertising, buses and bus shelters in Madrid.

Apart from the happy faces among the winners, the campaigns rendered a number of important positive results:

  • The training course about alcohol helped to raise awareness and address misperceptions and myths
  • The contest generated high-quality campaign materials
  • In terms of tonality and design, the campaigns were attractive to young people and teenagers. The idea that designers and the target group are the same thus seems to be a winning concept!

The campaign has been well received by the public institutions, and city councils outside Madrid are interested in developing similar projects in partnership with Espirituosos Spain.

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