Whilst on the surface it might seem harmless enough, the casual use of cocaine helps to fuel gang violence and child suffering up and down the country.
Working in partnership with Claremont we were asked by Thames Valley Police to challenge people to reconsider their use of cocaine and in turn drive down demand.
Claremont developed a strategy to specifically target people who might otherwise make ethical life choices, but who may not have considered the impact of their cocaine use. I was tasked with bringing this strategy to life.
We tested various approaches in co-design groups with members of our audience which helped us rule out a number of approaches which we initially thought would engage (like the terrible environmental impact of cocaine production). We learnt that the approach that really hit home was messaging around the human cost to children caught up in the drug trade.
The insights from the co-design sessions helped us refine the brief to focus on: • Highlighting the connection to child exploitation • Inform in a simple way (with no finger pointing) • Provoke thought and challenge preconceptions.
The outcome was a simple, stark message delivered as succinctly as possible with a design approach that was to the point and deliberately devoid of any embellishments. We wanted to make the audience think, and so anything that could have distracted from that was removed. The campaign was received well by both the police and the public.
