Best Government Integrated Ad Campaign

The Vermont Department of Health teamed with Marketing Partners to develop and execute a common theme social marketing media campaign to reduce underage drinking in Vermont. The research-based campaign focused on educating 12 to 15-year olds to recognize and resist messages from the alcohol industry. Given the saturation of the target audience with advertisements, we wanted quirky Flash ads that captured the attention of the young teen web user. The strategic goal for the drive-to-web ad campaign was to generate buzz among preteens by connecting them to fun interactive web applications that could be used to spread campaign key messages virally through texting and email. The “Lying Fortune Cookie” Flash ad drives the visitors to a text messaging application where they can create a funny fortune to send to their friends. The “Hidden Message” Flash ad links to a page where visitors can send an encoded e-card to their friends that can be read using branded decoder glasses given out as promo items. The “Don’t Question the P-Dog” ad drives to the home page of the site, where visitors can download free branded cell phone wallpapers or custom ringtones or forward a link to friends using a “send to a friend” script. Web analytics for the online campaign period reflected a dramatic increase in site traffic, downloads, use of the texting feature and forwarding to friends.

Contributors:

MARKETING PARTNERS, INC.

Location: United States