Background

In 2018, the Washington Regional Alcohol Program (WRAP) asked GMMB to create a campaign to deter drinking and driving behavior in Virginia men between the ages of 21 and 34. The campaign would be released under WRAP’s Checkpoint Strikeforce brand. Watch the case study video below to see what we came up with.

In our first year of advertising, we generated nearly 50,000 clicks and more than 4.7 million video completions, reaching a grand total of 5 million unique users. And the incidence of drunk driving continues to decrease year after year in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Here’s the full :30 spot that aired on TV and ran on digital. Scripting, casting, and directing this video was a blast.

Some behind-the-scenes shots. We filmed on location at Ireland’s Four Courts, a pub in Arlington, Virginia.

Here’s the :30 radio spot from 2018. This aired on terrestrial Virginia radio stations as well as on streaming platforms like Pandora and Spotify.

Finally, here are the out-of-home ads we created. We also ran digital display banners using these visuals and copy.

2019 Update

The 2018 campaign was so successful that in 2019, WRAP asked us to do a creative refresh. Below is a selection of the new banners we created.

2020: Act Like It (At Home)

In the summer of 2020, WRAP tasked us with refreshing the campaign with an eye toward the COVID-19 pandemic. At this time, vaccines had yet to be developed, and many people were abstaining from socializing at bars and restaurants. What they weren’t abstaining from, however, was drinking. And thus, Act Like It (At Home) was born. Watch the :30 video spot, which I directed 100% remotely via Zoom:

And here are the accompanying radio spots. We were able to produce Spanish-language radio this year, a first in my experience with this particular client.

Lastly, here are some of the digital banner ads we ran in 2020.

2021: Back at the Bar

During the summer of 2021, young people in the Washington Metropolitan Area (and nationwide) were getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and returning to the bars in droves. WRAP returned to airing our original video spot but wanted some fresh billboards and digital banners to add to the mix. Due to the success of our 2020 Spanish-language radio spot, WRAP asked us to create Spanish billboards and banners this year.

Hispanohablantes will notice that the Spanish billboards below are not literal translations of the English versions but instead culturally informed, contextual translations that make the same points as their English counterparts, just not in a word-for-word, one-to-one kind of way.

Here is a selection of the billboards we ran in 2021. We didn’t have budget to do a shoot this year, so we repurposed the best photographs from our 2018, 2019, and 2020 shoots, and we even created a never-before-seen composite image for our “Boys Night” executions. These billboards ran as digital banner ads as well.

Additionally, we needed a Spanish-language radio spot to depict drinkers back at the bar rather than at home, so I wrote, directed, and helped produce the following. Achievement unlocked: using the word “güey” (Mexican slang for “dude”) not once, but twice!

Bonus pics: Virginia Governor Ralph Northam at an August 2021 press conference on the state’s Checkpoint Strikeforce initiative. You can see some quickscreens we produced in the background.

Creative Director: Ben Hawkins

Associate Creative Director/Art Director: José Fernández

Associate Creative Director/Copywriter: Laura Orozco

Director of Photography: Dean Alexander

Designer: Stephen Henderson

Editor: Josh Steiner