9eek 9oddess on TODAY, Daily SG & gets TOMORROWED

It's not everyday you get to be on TODAY, get tomorrowed and get to be on Daily SG, unless of course, it's for a super duper damn good cause (or a freaking big scandal, read: politics, sex or both combined even better).

So it happens that on the fateful day of 19th October 2007, I get the honor of having a sweet spot on all three publications (well, sorta).

Thanks to the good job of the National Council Against Drug Abuse latest campaign, which embodies the slogan, "If you play, you pay". We're fortunate that in Singapore, drugs are that rampant, so perhaps in a certain way, we aren't that tempted -- there aren't that many opportunities that we come across that exposes us to the risk...

I remember being in the States and that it was much easier there to get hold of such substances.. many a times I must admit that it did pique my curiosity and since many friends were taking it, and surviving, it didn't seem that dangerous... but on the other hand, I'm glad I made a choice to stay clean...

I think when it comes to drugs, everything boils down to personal choice. We have an "ADAM" in all of us, where we point the accusing finger at the person next (and sometimes closest) to us and say "Eve made me do it, Eve made me eat of the apple..." But really, no one can put a gun to your head and force you to do something (unless you take this literally!!), so as individuals, what really matters is you make a stand and stick to it.

Why risk throwing everything away by getting hooked, and worse still, getting caught and put behind bars? I really never liked those scare campaigns where they showed posters of this woman with cancerous sores all over her mouth from smoking too much. I don't think scare tactics work, in fact I think they are a turn off. There has to be a balance between the real truth and just plain gore.

I think this NCADA campaign this year has been done very tastefully, a good balance between the facts and also engaging youths in playing a part in spreading the message. Not only have they chosen mediums such as blogs to spread the message (7 bloggers have been recruited for this campaign), they are also investing heavily on online mediums -- a very tactical move. Afterall, my mother knows that if she can't get me on my cell, she can always skype me, gtalk me or MSN me.

Youths today are a hip, upwardly mobile, online generation who can think and stand on their own 2 feet. Let's make a stand and say YES TO LIFE.

Pimping Zouk's, MOS' and FHM's Mags -singapore shocker-

"Drugs - If you play, you will pay"

Typical FHM Poster? Look again!

That's the new tagline for this year's Anti-Drug Campaign (the website is drool-worthy!), targeted at youths at risk of falling prey to the use of synthetic drugs. Was this campaign a flight or failure to launch?

This 4-month long campaign was launched by the National Council Against Drug Abuse (NCADA) yesterday @ SMU and this initiative aims to grab the attention of youths through street-art and online interactivity. It also marks a refreshing change in strategy - for the first time in a decade, NCADA is doing away with its annual anti-drug TV commercial.

Here, students are using graffiti art to paint on 2 police men escorting a young drug offender away.. a cool twist on the original ad

Students are using graffiti art as a way of adding a "spunk" to the typical anti-drug message. They are taking real ads such as Perlini's silver, MOS' and FHM's and overlaying the images with the stark message, "if you play, you will pay".

This new campaign gets a 2 THUMBS UP from me. We're so used to seeing so many campaigns in Singapore, sometimes, I for sure, brush off another campaign as insignificant and "same old, same old". We've been flooded with so many messages from different campaigns, the speak good English campaign, the courtesy campaign, etc, it's inevitable that when another campaign launches, the messages gets lost in all that noise.

Zouk advertisement being "pimped" up as well, with the NCADA message painted on the t-shirt.

However, I must commend NCADA for a great job this year. Their change in strategy has been definitely well thought out. More often than not, TV commercials are the main medium for spreading campaign messages and they are a must-have in the marketing mix. However, this time around, they are eliminating this medium and concentrating on using the online medium.

A lot of youths are indeed spending a lot of time online, we blog, blog surf, (re)check our emails (every 5 minutes) and spend half our day facebooking (*sheepish look*)... I feel that using the internet as a way to target youths is a fun and fresh thing to do! Who would have thought any national campaign would be so bold as to defy traditional, almost "fail-safe" mediums like TV?

My favourite of the lot -- Perlini Silver's model gets painted on a set of handcuff, hammering home the NCADA message!

The launch of the campaign also caused quite a "BANG". Youths were allowed to be creative as seen in the pictures below, transforming traditional poster advertisements into those that cause us to look twice.

Here's a clip on how a normal looking poster can be pimped up all for a good cause!

All in all, I'd like to say GOOD JOB to NCADA for stepping outside the box and being willing to experiment with novel and creative ways of reaching out to youths. We're a contemporary bunch and the last thing we need are the boring same old messages over and over again in our faces. We all know that drugs are bad, we've been hammered home the message since moral ed lessons in primary school -- we don't need to be lectured, we need to be educated. And educating us, you are -- in a way that catches our attention as well as connecting with us on a personal level.

Well done. I never thought any national campaign would actually wow me -- this is the first (and I hope not the last)!....