Client: AB Inbev
Product: Jupiler
Title: Drive Responsibly
Media: Radio, TV
Country: Belgium
Date Of Campaign: 31/12/2019

Background: Jupiler is the leading beer brand in the land of beer: Belgium. Unfortunately, Belgium is also the land of drinking and driving. 43% of Belgians admits to driving under the influence in the past 12 months. Obviously, Belgium has a huge cultural problem where drinking and driving is still socially accepted.27 years ago, Jupiler introduced an industry-standard warning at the end of its commercials: "beer brewed with love is to be consumed with care". All other beer brands follow this example. After 27 years, it was clear this message is not effective anymore. To remain a leader in terms of CSR messaging, Jupiler committed to creating a more effective anti drink-driving campaign.The main strategic challenge was to identify previous anti-drink driving campaigns' shortcomings.We found two:First, repeating an alcohol warning at the end of a fun ad promoting alcohol for years, is not effective. If the mind notices that the emotion connected to a certain stimulus proves irrelevant, it will be ignored (Mrug, Madan, Cook, Wright, 2015). Secondly typical drink/drive ads showing friends at a bar, followed by a car accident, are not effective either. Using the same stereotypical context has often conversely normalised drink-driving behaviour. (Wickramarachchi, P., University of Moratuwa, 2013) To reinvent drink/ drive messaging we looked at the efforts car manufacturers make to make their cars safer. Our breakthrough insight: the most important safety option is a sober driver. That’s why we decided to create a warning message for car drivers, rather than beer drinkers.

Idea: We changed the widely ignored, but well-known expression “Beer brewed with love is to be consumed with care”. Into: ‘Cars built with love are to be used with care.’ But we also reinvented the context. Instead of adding our message to our beer commercials, we attached it to car commercials. Together with media sales houseswe were able to pinpoint the exact slot in the commercial block, to advertise rightafter a car ad. Giving us the opportunity to turn every car ad into an alcohol warning.To ensure this message was noticed, we planned our campaign during the peak period for car ads: right before the Brussels Car Expo.The strategy to move away from typical emotional drink/driving ads to warning ads for cars, inspired us to be creative in terms of media planning and execution.

Results: We reached 69% of Jupiler’s core audience (Legal drinking age 18+). Besides the paid slots the interesting tension - “the country’s leading alcohol brand linking up with car brands?” was also picked up extensively by the mainstream Belgian press.Jupiler was praised by politicians, victim associations, transport organisations, police officials and industry experts on reinventing a stagnated messaging. The campaign did more than raising awareness. It contributed to shifting the social attitude, decreasing acceptance of drinking and driving, and increasing support for zero tolerance.Research by ipsos showed:A 12 percentage point decrease of people who tolerate others consuming alcohol and drivingA 6 percentage point increase of people who practice or want to practice a zero tolerance policy when it comes to alcohol and driving.A 6 percentage point decrease of people who feel it’s ok to drive a car after drinking two beers