Eat.Drink and Be Safe: London Ambulance Service act like the 'Cool Uncle'

With Christmas just around the corner, everyone is getting into the party mood. Over eating, horrible Christmas jumpers, late nights, and alcohol are  all part and parcel (pardon the pun) of the festive period. So instead of trying to prevent the inevitable, the London Ambulance Service are embracing festive frolicking in their new campaign. 

The traditional approach for social marketing ads has been to warn people of the dangerous of what many would class as “having fun." As you can imagine, this type of advertising often falls on deaf ears. People are not receptive to a message that basically says, “Don’t enjoy self” or “You not sensible enough to enjoy your alcohol sensibly.” And that is the sort of message that the London Ambulance Service wanted to avoid putting out!

So how you do warn people of the dangerous of alcohol abuse without looking like a buzz kill? By acting like the ‘Cool Uncle.’

No one likes to be told what to do, and in fact, prohibition only makes participation even more alluring.So an ad essential saying     “don’t get carried away”, might in fact encourage some to try and prove the ad wrong i.e “I know my own limits”. And that’s were this campaign is differs. Rather than assume immaturity, it assumes that we know how to drink responsibly.  

Encouraging us to do what we want, and then merely saying “be safe” it is perceived as a friendly, non-authoritative warning. And is something that head-strong autonomous individuals like ourselves would be more likely to listen to. 

This campaign is seemingly on the side of fun and therefore our side, just like that ‘Cool Uncle.’