Ad Council, US Olympic Committee and Johnson & Johnson
Don't Be An Asterisk
The problem with steroids is they work. So in order to prevent teens from using them without increasing consideration, we needed to make steroids socially unacceptable and hit them where they live. So we used an asterisk as our modern day scarlet letter.
The Don't Be An Asterisk spot launched during SuperBowl XLIII and all media drove traffic to an online, animated high school to learn more, hear from real athletes who used and got caught, and discover healthy alternatives to steroids. While the TV spot was featured on AdCritic and Creativity as one of the Top 5 creative ads of the week/month, the campaign was honored with a Silver Bell from Ad Council and the print campaign went on to win a Kelly Award for Best Print PSA.
For phase two of this multi-year campaign, we created Play Asterisk Free, a social movement that turned our anti-steroid messaging into a rallying cry. In just three months after the video launched it went viral with a quarter of a million views boasting a click through rate of 3.17%. All social channels, including teaser videos, drove to a Facebook campaign that acquired over 4,000 new high-school student “likes” in one semester who pledged online to compete and play steroid free.
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NAMI (National Association of Mental Illness)Think Inside OutTeen suicide is a growing epidemic and the main cause is mental health illness and the lack of understanding. In an multi-year effort to get teens to speak up, show solidarity and seek help we developed a campaign that will roll out to classrooms and campuses across the country to acknowledge the problem, educate the masses and save lives.
