What you need to know:

• There are 58 lives lost each year on Queensland roads, and more than 750 people are seriously injured, as a result of drink driving.
• Young people, especially males, are particularly at risk, and typically give few hoots to government comms. So Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads along with EssenceMediacom, set about how best to reach them.
• They came up with, er, print media, teaming up with the Betoota Advocate to create a newspaper version of the satirical online rag for the first time ever.
• There was a lot more to it than that – and the plan almost fell over part way through – but ultimately, it worked.
• Now it’s winning a hatful of awards and helping to save lives. Here’s how they did it, and the results.

Some news is good news

There are 58 lives lost each year on Queensland roads, and more than 750 people are seriously injured, as a result of drink driving. It’s one-fifth of all lives lost on Queensland roads annually. Which is why in 2021, the Queensland Government rolled out several drink driving reforms including changes to the alcohol ignition interlock program and drink driving education programs.

But Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads knew it would need something with more sass to try and really get through to the one in three males aged 18-24 who admit to driving when they may be over the alcohol limit. So it teamed up with fiercely independent news publication, The Betoota Advocate, and longstanding agency partner, EssenceMediaCom, to launch the media brand’s first-ever physical newspaper, a decided deviation from the media company’s usual digital news format.

It was equally a hefty departure for the government department in extending out from its drink driving campaign, ‘In your hands’, which had run just prior to this across TV, cinema, outdoor, social/digital and sporting sponsorship.

Kicking off with a physical format then going into events, online and social integration is work that’s seen the state government department chalk up four award wins so far, including the Australian Marketing Institute’s Best Content Marketing campaign of the year at this year’s Marketing Excellence Awards, plus an MFA trophy for Media Content Amplification and two Festival of Media APAC Awards (Gold, best Distribution and Amplification of Content; Bronze in Best Use of Publishing).

Why marketers need to be persistent

But it almost didn’t happen. Department of Transport and Roads principal advisor, Natalie Doyle told Mi3 the campaign was supremely difficult to get over the line and “took persistence”.

“It took us two years. It was rejected the first time; then we showed them a draft newspaper, which illustrated how it could play out,” she said. “Eventually, the internal teams came on and said we’d do it as a test. And they loved it.”

The hurdle confronting Queensland Department of Transport was the difficulty in getting men between 18 and 24 years of age to even engage with government, Doyle said. “They just don’t turn up, which is why we went to The Betoota Advocate,” she said. “We needed to really talk about the consequences.”

The Betoota Advocate has a million weekly readers, covering 88 per cent of the 18-44-year-old demographic. Notably, it’s a winner with young men in Queensland, with a highly engaged Australian regional audience including more than 360,000 Queensland users outside of Brisbane. Research showed 69 per cent of the Queensland Government’s target audience liked and knew The Betoota Advocate, indicating a strong propensity to read content delivered in that platform.

Doyle said the pair joined forces to produce The Betoota Advocate’s first physical newspaper, a deviation from its normal digital news platform. Original content with the satiric style it’s best known for was employed, a collaborative effort between the title’s witty journalists, the department and EssenceMediacom.

“We knew a physical newspaper would be a great initiation channel to distribute our drink driving message on the ground at hand-picked regional events,” explained Doyle. Three events in fact in 2023: The Townsville Super Rugby, The Bundaberg Show and the Mt Isa Rodeo, which attracted over 67,000 participants. In all 30,000 printed papers were distributed.

“They were distributed where they would have maximum impact on behaviour change – just as attendees were arriving and engaging with the event,” Doyle said. “We also handed out branded stubby coolers at pubs and clubs in the areas to maximise the campaign message of ‘Drinking? Never drive’.”

Digital acceleration

While print cut through in its own way, online then extended reach to more than 1,460,000 young male Queenslanders, and led to more than 3 million in social reach. The highest reach for the Townsville Super Rugby came from a piece about ‘the person who yells taxi at the pub…’, while drink driving focused articles achieved reach and engagement rates 185 per cent and 164 per cent above the Betoota average, respectively. At the Mt Isa Rodeo, the top story was about a ‘Bloke who bought a round of vodka red bulls’. In all, articles relating to the three-part event campaign chalked up 2 million in reach.

Doyle cited a +10.5 per cent lift in the belief in the consequences of drink driving from a baseline of 84 per cent. Importantly, the statement, ‘I am actively trying not to drive over the legal limit after drinking alcohol’ rose +34 per cent from a baseline of 57 per cent.

“The guys at The Betoota Advocate were treated like celebrities everyone,” commented Doyle. “We talk to young males, gave them the paper, which was peppered with drink driving articles and messages about the consequences of drink driving but done in a satirical way. Print was such a talking point. Many of these guys had never read the printed paper and it became a keepsake for them. That was the whole idea – content and engagement across print, then online, with that emphasis on drink driving.”

Doyle said the partnership garnered widespread acclaim and publicity across all of the content channels.

“Overall, this partnership has been very successful and it’s achieved excellent levels of recall, plus fulfilled or surpassed most of the objectives and effectively influenced the attitudes of our target audience,” she added.