Smashed
The Brief
Help ten million young people better understand the risks of underage drinking
Diageo’s flagship alcohol awareness programme had spent 15 years proving that drama-based learning changes attitudes. But live performances could only reach a fraction of the target audience, and the cost per head made global scale impossible. With regulatory expectations mounting and a commitment to reach ten million young people, Diageo needed to go digital — without losing the emotional power that made the programme work.
The Solution
An interactive experience that puts young people at the heart of the story
Rather than lecture, we let the audience lead. A branching narrative film where young people make the decisions, face the consequences, and learn through the story — not from the sidelines.
Smashed — The Interactive Experience
A global alcohol awareness programme running for more than 15 years, driving behavioural change worldwide.
Smashed had been running for over 15 years, delivered by Collingwood Learning and supported by Diageo. The live programme worked — drama performance combined with workshops had a proven track record of shifting attitudes among young people.
But the model had reached its ceiling. Live delivery couldn’t scale across the dozens of markets where Diageo operates, and the cost per participant made the ten-million target unreachable without a fundamental shift in format.
The challenge wasn’t just digital transformation. It was preserving the emotional impact of a live, in-room drama experience inside a screen — across 32 countries, in multiple languages, for an audience whose attention is the hardest to earn.
Our Approach
Tell a story that our audience would want to watch, with characters they could relate to.
The story — and the way it was told — needed to reflect our target demographic; youthful and energetic but also true to life.
We conducted a short focus group with teenagers so that we could reflect how they would speak about these issues. Our research informed all of our decision making; from the design of the interactive through to the movement of the camera, the soundtrack through to the actors body language.
An interactive story for young people by young people, with a pull, not push approach — just like the content they would choose to watch, with a focus on decision-making as opposed to criticising lifestyle choices.
An experience that is tonally and visually true to life, filmed handheld to immerse the audience, featuring interactive social media snippets. The action focuses on three teens navigating underage drinking crunch points; the learning comes from their conversations and decisions.
The Experience
Tilt worked sensitively with our creative and educational material, adapting it for digital and bringing fresh ideas and inspiration to the programme.
Chris Simes, Managing Director — Collingwood Learning
Gallery
Key Project Assets
Interactive Film Experience
A fully interactive story-driven learning experience, allowing young people to make decisions and see the consequences of underage drinking first-hand.
Vertical Character Films
Short-form character clips designed in a vertical format, as if being filmed and watched through a mobile phone — meeting the audience where they are.
Localised Market Rollout
A framework for localising the experience across multiple countries, ensuring content feels wholly relevant and culturally on point in each market.
Drama-Based Learning Methodology
Preserving the power of live performance in a digital format, combining interactive film with educational workshops and teacher resources.
Impact
Driving real change — the numbers behind the programme. Smashed Online has reached millions of young people across 32 countries, generating fantastic feedback from teachers and students worldwide.
Smashed — Impact & Insights Film
A Global Initiative
A project with huge global ambitions — now live in over 32 countries
We decided that localising this project — so that every market has its own site and set of films — was the best solution so that the content feels wholly relevant and culturally on point in order to make the right sort of impact in each country.
We have briefed these markets on how to approach the project, acting as the creative fulcrum to bring these stories to life around the world. Now live in over 32 countries, with more being added with each passing month.
