Background

A 600ml bottle of soft drink contains up to 16 teaspoons of sugar. And one in six Aussie teenagers consumes at least 5 kg of sugar each year from sugary drinks alone. Regular consumption can cause tooth decay, obesity and kidney disease. Obesity is a leading risk factor for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. However, soft drink brands spend millions on marketing every year, creating a world of bright colours, upbeat music and carefree fun that seduces young people into associating their drinks with pure joy.

Driven by Cancer Council Victoria, the campaign was supported by the 19 organisations that make up the Rethink Sugary Drink Alliance, including Australian Dental Association, Diabetes Australia, Nutrition Australia and Kidney Health. 

The Rethink Sugary Drink Alliance needed to get young people – specifically Gen Z and Millennials – thinking twice about the amount of sugar in soft drinks and the health risks associated with overconsumption. But it’s notoriously difficult to get this audience to engage with health messages, let alone drive behaviour change. So we needed to talk to them in the right place at the right time, with a message that was impossible to ignore or forget. 

The answer? Draw them in…and then repulse them.

The Idea

We created a film inspired by content that thrives on the channels where our audiences spend significant amounts of their time. We replicated the bright, fun, joyful world of soft drink brands to draw our audience in…then pulled the rug out from under them with a quick switch to the grim truth about soft drinks. The content was repulsive but somehow hypnotically watchable and, essentially, unforgettable. It felt completely at home on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. And, our normally cynical audience loved it.

Results

• 260,000+ video views 

• 4000+ engagements

• Selected as a TikTok Top Ad

• “The only ad a boomer didn’t make!” - Dylan Humm, Facebook user

• “Thank you for letting me see an actually creative public information film in the wild for the first time in one trillion years.” - Penrose, YouTube user