CNB’s Preventive Drug Education (PDE) programme started in 1994 and is part of Singapore’s zero tolerance policy for drugs. Targeted at youth, PDE has so far used ‘scare strategies’ to try to avert this young and impressionable group from drugs. This has been quite successful in consistently bringing down the number of drug abusers over the years – that is, until 2005 when the figures started to plateau and even showed signs of increasing. So the question was what next? What can be done to bring the drug abuse rate even lower?

Initial talks with youth experts and some preliminary research pointed out a possible need to review the current PDE segmentation strategy.

Recognising the existence of an alternative youth group: Research suggested to look at the diversity of youth cultures and indicated an opportunity for segmentation beyond the current target groups of mainstream youth group and at-risk youth group. This led us to explore existing youth sub cultures (also known as alternative youth cultures) in Singapore.

Influence of alternative youth: Comparing youth culture attributes across youth groups showed that the alternative youth is expected to have, through their aspirational style and cool factor, some influence on youth in general. As such, they have a potential to act as a conduit for spreading the anti-drug message.

Build a connection before delivering the message: Research also indicated that for communication to be effective, the primary imperative (for the ‘communicator’ or the ‘brand’) is to form a connection with youth to make them more receptive to the message. And to form this connection, it is essential to first have an understanding of what drives youth and the fundamentals of communication with them.

Another important factor that was discovered was the need to put youth central in the presentation, creation and distribution of the message. This essentially means that the communications campaign should have the face of youth and a language that youth will understand and connect with – all communicated through youth-centric media channels.

“One of the challenges was the internal buy-in by CNB’s top brass, as what we had proposed was radically different from what CNB had been doing earlier”, says Geert van Kuijk, Director, Strategy & Research.

“But once they were convinced with the research findings and our proposed strategic direction, we worked closely with the CNB team to create a revolutionary preventive drug education brand, which, in its own right is a first in the Singapore context”, adds Nav Qirti, Director, Strategy & Client Engagement.

Brand positioning: This was a long and intensive project, and the next challenge after arriving at the positioning was to have a name that resonated with youth as well as a logo that personified the brand.

The name: Keeping the brand attributes and positioning in mind, we worked closely with the CNB team to shortlist five names and tested them through a survey with the target audience to make the final selection. The final agreed name was Live it Loud, which was completely in sync with the target audience.

The logo: We conducted a similar exercise to arrive at a logo, which truly resonated with the youth. “We worked with young street artists and illustrators to create the desired image that connects with the targeted youth. To confirm the tone and visual language of the logo design, we engaged a few youth groups to gather feedback on the proposed directions”, says Wil Kolen, Creative Director.

The brand marketing campaign: After getting the brand ready, the next task was to launch it in the most effective way possible. Again, research findings on how to connect with youth served as the guiding points.

Geert explains, “With the aim of forming connections with our target audience first before delivering the message, we recommended that the brand be launched as a teaser/stealth campaign so that youth could develop an affinity with it”.

This called for an unconventional campaign. Without revealing that it came from CNB, the Preventive Drug Education Department launched a Facebook campaign where participants were asked to submit videos on the theme of Live it Loud as part of a competition. The response was overwhelming.

This is resonated by Yong Fe Ping, Senior Assistant Director, Preventive Education Unit, CNB, when she said, “An increasingly sophisticated youth demands a more discerning, customised and ingenious conversation, and we feel the campaign hit the right notes with that. The campaign was extremely focused in reaching out to our target demographic”.

The success of the campaign approach has found mention beyond the national boundaries of Singapore – one such example is from Adobo Marketing and Advertising Magazine, Philippines, which commented: “A refreshing campaign to reach out to youth”.