By Ari Massefski, Class of 2014
Since the academic year started, George Washington University has been adorned with thousands of black decals and advertisements sporting the slogan “You Know. Be There.” They are attached to residence hall mirrors, stuck to the floors of bathrooms and hanging in the hallways of buildings across campus. The ads are part of a campaign to combat the effects of drinking on campus, and the initiative began in one classroom.
“Our goal was to get students to do things that would prevent dangerous overconsumption,” said Lynda Maddox, professor of marketing at GW’s School of Business and the professor in whose class the project began.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 1,825 college students die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, and nearly 600,000 college students are unintentionally injured due to episodic drinking.
Rather than focusing on ending campus drinking, the “You Know. Be There” campaign encourages students to watch out for their friends on occasions when they might be likely to drink too much and to intervene in subtle ways to reduce dangerous overconsumption. According to Dr. Maddox, student research showed that a campaign that takes a “preachy” approach telling students not to drink is not effective.
“We realized that a person might go out at night and not have the greatest gauge of how drunk they are,” said Katie Crimmins, B.B.A. ’09, who was a senior in the class that created the campaign. “You can’t tell when you’re about to go overboard, but your friends can. We wanted to incite a need for friends to watch out for one another.”
The campaign deployed posters with sayings such as, “You Know when your friend gets dumped she’ll be looking to get wasted. Offer to buy her dinner. Be There.” While Dr. Maddox doesn’t condone drinking on campus, she said completely stopping student drinking on college campuses simply isn’t realistic. Instead, the campaign aims to increase awareness of the dangers of overconsumption and encourage students to look out for one another.
“The short-term goal is awareness, identification of the signs of overconsumption and engagement in the campaign,” she said. “Social change takes time, and we hope that eventually this could change the campus culture.”
The campaign began in Dr. Maddox’s Advanced Advertising Campaigns class in 2009. As part of the course, the 18 seniors competed in the American Advertising Federation’s National Student Advertising Competition. While the students complete a major assignment for the class, the focus of the course is on the competition. Every year, the competition is sponsored by a different organization, and the students of the more than 200 competing universities try to create the best advertising campaign for the sponsor.
In 2009, the year that “You Know. Be There” was created, the competition was sponsored by the Century Council, a nonprofit organization founded by a group of distilleries that aims to eliminate drunk driving and underage drinking and instead promote responsible decision-making around alcohol use.
“The liquor industry has no desire for people to be harmed while using their product,” said Dr. Maddox. “They believe in self-regulation, but they also feel a sense of social responsibility.”
The class became a sort of family, according to Dr. Maddox, as the students spent countless hours together creating their proposal for the “You Know. Be There” campaign. In March 2009, the team submitted a 32-page proposal to a panel of judges composed of experts in the advertising field. Several weeks later, the team competed in the regional competition in New York and was selected as the sole team to advance to the national contest.
“The hours were extensive,” Dr. Maddox said. “Sometimes we stayed up all hours of the night, but that level of commitment generally produces a great advertising campaign.”
GW has a history of success in the competition, winning four out of the last six contests and often placing in the top four. The “You Know. Be There” campaign did not win the national contest—it placed fifth—but it attracted enough attention that GW was one of four schools along with Ohio University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Alabama to receive a $75,000 grant from the Century Council to put their campaign into practice.
Caroline Emanuel, B.B.A. ’09, who was a member of the original class and now works for InnerWorkings, a Chicago print management firm, said that the idea for “You Know. Be There” came from meetings with student focus groups in which they discussed the effects of binge drinking.
“In those groups, most people wanted to tell funny stories about the time their friend got drunk,” said Ms. Emanuel. "We saw patterns in the stories, and in every story there became a point where it wasn’t so funny, where it goes from ‘That was a great night!’ to ‘Wow, that was too much.’”
Survey research conducted after the implementation of the campaign showed that more than 60 percent of freshmen were aware of the campaign and 93 percent of those knew that it promoted safer drinking. Nearly 50 percent reported intervening to help a friend who had drank too much.
Camille Heyboer, a sophomore in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, said that she has seen the impact of the campaign on the student body.
“These posters help students to keep their minds open to having fun without alcohol because they emphasize the good that can come from being sober, rather than just the bad that can come from binge drinking,” said Ms. Heyboer. “This more positive approach has helped students to think of ways to have fun without drinking.”
Gina Meyers, M.B.A. ’09, was a teaching assistant in the class that originally dreamed up the idea. She was also Dr. Maddox’s assistant on the research grant and project manager for the development of the campaign.
“We’re not saying, ‘don’t drink,’” said Ms. Meyers. “Those campaigns don’t work. Our research showed that students recognize the signs of overconsumption of alcohol, and they want to be there for their friends, but they don’t necessarily know how.”
The campaign rollout began last June during Colonial Inauguration and continued through October. Ms. Meyers said the timing was intentional and was aimed to impact the incoming class of 2015.
“Students’ habits really form during the first six weeks of school,” said Ms. Meyers. “If all of their new habits are being formed around alcohol, that’s all they’re going to know for the rest of their college career. If we can alter their habits early on, it will drastically change the course of their college career.”
The campaign was created by students for students, and Dr. Maddox said it was intended that way.
“We didn’t want people to think it was created by Century Council or by GW as an overarching ‘big brother,’” she said. “The campaign is focused around the action that a friend takes. And it’s not such an intrusive action—it’s something you’d feel comfortable doing.”
After graduation, several students who worked on the original campaign were offered jobs at Ogilvy & Mather, a top advertising firm in New York City. Dr. Maddox attributes their success to the experience they had developing the “You Know. Be There” campaign.
“It was a really good stepping stone for a career in advertising,” Dr. Maddox said. “GW is known to have an outstanding marketing program, and students who complete this class really learn how to think strategically and how to do well in their career.”
According to Dr. Maddox, the class is difficult, time consuming and emotionally intense, but she also says that students find it incredibly rewarding. Students work on their marketing, management, strategic thinking, writing and oral presentation skills.
“We had a great time because the campaign we were working on was of interest to the people in the class,” said Ms. Crimmins, who now works for American Express. “It was relevant and personal to all of us, and that made it a great thing to work on.”
Dr. Maddox said she hopes the campaign will not only lead students to notice the ads but also to process the message and remember it.
“As a friend, you can sense when something isn’t right,” she said. “People who are there for their friends feel good about their friendships and are generally proud of what they’ve done to help.”