An interactive campaign to raise awareness of the new national alcohol consumption guidelines has won a silver award in the 2023 Better Future Design Awards, Community Activation category.

The ‘Reducing risky drinking’ campaign which formed part of a national campaign run in 2021/22 was funded locally by COORDINARE - South Eastern NSW PHN.

Ms Prue Buist, CEO of COORDINARE said South Eastern NSW has the sixth-highest rate of alcohol-related hospitalisations in NSW, with one in five people in the region engaging in high-risk alcohol consumption.

“By joining forces with the Alcohol and Drug Foundation to raise awareness of safer drinking guidelines, we hoped to turn this trend around and support our communities to prevent further alcohol-related harm and hospitalisations,” said Ms Buist.

“The national campaign was actively supported at a local level across South Eastern NSW, with the Alcohol and Drug Foundation engaging local community sporting clubs through the Good Sports initiative. A community activation pack was developed for community groups, stakeholders, Good Sports Clubs and Local Drug Action Teams in the region,” said Ms Buist.

A number of local sports clubs received the free resource pack which included bar mats, coasters, posters, info sheets and stickers as well as a link to the digital campaign kit with social media tiles.

“The campaign featured interactive collateral that challenged viewers to guess the new guidelines for themselves. It included information in GP surgeries, advertisements on social media, YouTube, online news sites and on TV in addition to outdoor advertising across the South Eastern NSW region,” said Ms Buist.

The campaign was extremely effective reaching more than 145,000 via Facebook and Instagram, 80,000 via Xaxis, 25,000 via AHTV, 300,000 via videos in local doctor's surgeries and 165,000 via YouTube. In our region more than 1,227,000 people saw ads at local shopping centres.

Uptake of the interactive collateral by sporting clubs was also outstanding, with demand for packs almost doubling the initially reserved stock and requiring an additional print run. In the first month, the interactive quiz held an average completion rate of more than 65% and average engagement time of nearly 8 minutes per session.

Dr Erin Lalor, CEO of the Alcohol and Drug Foundation said: “We are thrilled the community engagement activities have been acknowledged for their design and implementation. These activities are an integral component of health promotion campaigns and help community members further engage with key messages.

“This is the second award the campaign has received - in April last year the campaign also won silver in the DrivenxDesign Gov Design Awards.”

The latest NHRMC low-risk drinking guidelines are significantly different from those recommended in 2009. You can learn more about the new alcohol guidelines and access the campaign here!