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Behind the scenes as Drinkaware and Cellar Trends take responsible drinking message to consumers on a night out

Published:  12 November, 2012

Last weekend Drinkaware linked up with Cellar Trends to take the responsible drinking message direct to consumer in bars and nightclubs across the country. Here Laura Robertson of Cellar Trends and Emma Healey, campaign manager for Drinkaware, give their take on what happened

Earlier this month Drinkaware linked up with Cellar Trends to take the responsible drinking message direct to consumer in bars and nightclubs across the country. Here Laura Robertson of Cellar Trends and Emma Healey, campaign manager for Drinkaware, give their take on what happened

Laura Robertson, Cellar Trends, writes about a night out in Nottingham:

I took to the nightlife of Nottingham on Saturday night to see our Brand Activation team partner with Drinkaware. The aim was to give 18-24 year olds tips on how to drink responsibly but still have a great night out. I went to three venues where we found the target consumers Drinkaware wants to reach. And I have to say we had an amazing night.

It was great to see that we can make difference when you talk to people in their comfort zones. Consumers are receptive to our teams anyway as they see them regularly and trust us. So this made it easy to approach them and give them some tips without preaching. We also gave them some great giveaways with information on how to find out more about sensible drinking.

We spoke on average to 250 people in each venue and pointed them in the direction of the Drinkware data capture competition on Facebook. This gathered contact information from 100 people per venue which will allow Drinkaware to reinforce our messages after the event. We did this activation across 18 cities over the weekend which in turn will give access to 5,000 plus people who would never of thought of visiting the Drinkaware site.

It was also great to hear people's thoughts on how to prevent a hangover, with comments like eat a tomato, drink olive oil etc. And for us to be able to give the correct advice in response to these thoughts like 'eating isn't cheating', 'drink plenty of water' and so on.

Cellar Trends has always pushed the responsible drinking message and will continue to do so. I think I great thing with this is you have people of the same age giving advice which makes it easier to listen too and will encourage behaviour change amongst this age group.

Emma Healey, Drinkaware, on a night out in south London

When we hit the bars in London with the Cellar Trends promo teams I wasn't sure what to expect. Their goal was to speak to consumers about the 'Why let good times go bad?' campaign and promote our Good Times app. Would they think it was a strange association for us to be working together?

Yes, of course, they came asking to buy Jägermeister at the stand and made jokes about it, but once the team told them what we were doing, they were generally receptive. There were some really interesting discussions around some of our suggested tips and especially around our competition asking people to give their best tips to avoid a hangover. They ranged from quirky things like eating a tomato or rocket salad before bed (not medically proven so don't try it at home!) to some more inventive answers that I probably shouldn't mention here!

The best bit of the night for me was speaking to a student about what she thought you can do to keep the good times going and avoid hangovers. Despite being a bit defensive at first, she said, "make every third drink a soft one". When I asked where she had got that from, she said "it's all over those adverts on bus stops". It was really encouraging to know that people are seeing the campaign and taking note of the tips.

Having the opportunity to see consumers in the midst of a night out and to get their responses to our messaging was great. The promotional staff were good at getting the message across, even encouraging a number of people to download our 'Good Times' app there and then.

Activities like this are really useful for Drinkaware as it gives us access to our target audience that we don't otherwise get. It helps us to bring the campaign to life and to give tips and information when people are receptive to a 'nudge'. The bars also responded well and it would be great to get them more involved in future - displaying campaign materials on posters or screens, and maybe even providing water on the bar for people to drink.

*What do you think of this initiative. What steps are you taking to get across the responsible drinking message. Have your say through harpers.editorial@wrbm.com

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