NSW Government unveils print work part of ‘Stop Before it Gets Ugly’ campaign via JWT Sydney
This week JWT Sydney launched the confronting ‘Stop Before it Gets Ugly’ campaign for the NSW Government. This is the first NSW Government advertising campaign to focus specifically on curbing alcohol-fuelled violence.
Simon Harsent from The Pool Collective was selected to capture these powerful images for the print component of the campaign, each execution highlighting the tragic consequences of alcohol-related violence such as ending up in a hospital bed or even a jail cell.
The concept behind the campaign was to shock potential aggressors into understanding that it only takes those few extra drinks for the situation to suddenly turn ugly, and the consequences can be irreversible. The imagery had to be startling yet realistic to have full impact and influence the behavior of the key demographic.
In order to achieve this level of believability a team of highly skilled prosthetic artists were enlisted to create the extremely confronting scar across the head of the hospital victim. The strength of this campaign lies in illustrating not only the physical, but also legal and emotional damage
of alcohol related violence.
The print component will be prevalent throughout an expansive OOH outreach as well as point of sale at numerous NSW pubs, clubs and bars to further advocate the message to potential would be aggressors to ‘
Stop Before it Gets Ugly’.
NSW Government: Client
JWT Sydney: Agency
Simon Langley: Executive Creative Director
John Lam: Creative Director
Rachel Townsend: Senior Print Producer
Rachel Wintle: Account Director
Laurie Geddes: Copywriter
The Pool Collective: Production Company
Simon Harsent: Photographer
Cameron Gray: Executive Producer
PeTrea Lambert: Producer
Cherith Crozier: Stylist
Taylor Patterson: Stylist Assist
Jeremy Wolf: Digi Assist
John Feely: 1st Assist
Henri Fanti: 2nd Assist
Adam Johansen: Prosthetic Specialist
Michelle Dube: Hair & Make up
4 Comments
Like this work. Powerful stuff.
Alcohol Fuelled violence, or narcotics fulled violence?
Drink too much, it gets ugly
23 Mar 2009
Research suggests that young people under the age of 15 who consume alcohol are much more likely than older drinkers to undertake risky or anti-social behaviour.
In order to raise public awareness on binge drinking, the South Australian government have launched a health campaign ‘drink too much, it gets ugly’ aimed at targeting 18-39 year old males, who are most likely to binge drink.
Important work well executed, for the most part. Striking photography and strong copy, but the graphics and layout are shocking really.
The clichéd bloody splatter and the mottled typeface are truly horrible, and what’s up with the tilted text?
Elegant, simple, and legible would have been the best choice to support the image and the writing and to feature the creative power of the message.
Instead, the work of a talented photographer and a hard-hitting copywriter were undermined by a try-hard art director, one with very poor taste frankly, who decided to feature themselves and their contribution.
The gravity of the burning issue of alcohol related violence suffers as a result, and that’s a shame.