WASHINGTON STATE HEALTH CARE AUTHORITY

Focus On+

An integrated anti-drinking campaign for high school students, that provides alternatives to the stress of teen life and social pressures around drinking underage.

Project Deliverables:

Campaign lock-up + creative concept
Campaign style guide + illustration/iconography library
Website design + social campaign + print collateral

My Role:

Senior Art Director, Design Lead

Brief:

We were tasked with dispelling the misconceptions about underage drinking while also refreshing a previous campaign, “Out of the Picture” to utilize the existing instruction of various social and paid media platforms.

Creative Strategy:

Our creative strategy was multi-faceted. One, we needed to refresh the visuals, while also building a through-thread from the previous campaign that pulled in some of the camera/picture language. Second, we needed counter societal and pop-culture influences. Finally, we needed to find a compelling angle that would let students know drinking didn’t have to be a part of their journey. We did that by centering the campaign on the students. By “Focus(ing) On” the things that make them unique, on their goals, and their dreams. In creating a focus on themselves and providing alternative behaviors we could better help them achieve their goals while sidestepping the intense stress and pressures that could otherwise lead a teen to underage drink.

Campaign Manifesto:

We all grow up with expectations of what high school will be like—the friends you’ll make, the plays you’ll perform in or sports you’ll play, how you’ll fit in. But what really matters is that you stay true to yourself and don’t let things like misperceptions around underage drinking influence what you do. Because when you leave alcohol out of the picture, you can focus in on what’s important, capture all the good moments, and even develop new interests.

Campaign Visual Strategy

The campaign aims to visually highlight the student at the center of their high school journey, emphasizing the importance of focusing on their unique needs and experiences. To visually convey this message, we created a brand system that pulled elements from single-lense-reflex photography: the focus vs. blur, the viewfinder, the contrast, and the layout grids. When paired with slice-of-life photography, featuring students enjoying activities that add-to, rather than subtract from, we were able to further the ‘focus on’ visual metaphor.

Iconography

Campaign Website

The focal point of the campaign was the website, FocusOnYouWA.org where the media buy and other collateral directed teens to get more information about the reality and consequences of underage drinking in Washington state, through social norms and healthy coping alternatives.

Social Campaign, Static & Video

A robust visual identity was created for this campaign and applied in a number of ways across static, slider, animated, and video social posts. Messaging centered on protective factors and building resiliency for teens to help them resist alcohol and other drugs through healthy ways to cope, emotion regulation, skills development, positive social norms, and prioritizing self-care.

Campaign Giveaways

In addition to the digital assets, our team created a number of print collateral including custom pins for teens as giveaways at various Washington state youth conferences and events.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Healthy Habits Guides

We created two, 30-day downloadable guides for teens to practice their healthy habits through mindfulness and boundary setting. These guides were based on research that improved habit setting like breaking each activity into one specific activity at a time, repeating behaviors and tasks, variation of activities to provide variety and discourage discontinuation and create trackable progress through the use of interactive calendars and completion markers.