The work is pretty hard hitting. Do you think that shock tactics are important/needed to engage with youths tempted by meth?

It’s not so much shock tactics as it is showing consequences of using meth. And the consequences just happen to be really really horrible.

In the UK we have the Frank campaign, which tries to engage young people using humor. Would you say that one technique is ‘better’ than the other, or is it a case of trying to get the message across however possible?

I would not say one is better than the other. Nor would I say it’s a matter of ‘getting the message across however possible’. The approach/technique on how to engage teens actually came from teens themselves. We talked to a lot of teens (research) to find out how they would best take this message in/how they would want to consume it. Notions of real stories and brutal honesty kept rising to the top. (We purposefully wanted the TV work to be one shot so as to make the situation unfolding seem as real as possible).

Is it harder nowadays to engage with a youthful audience, as there are so many media devices competing for attention?

I think you just need to know how and when to engage them on those devices—when they want to interact with a brand and when they don’t. For Meth, the teens we are talking to aren’t really on smart phones or iPads, but they are texting, constantly. So we developed a mobile ’stunt’ where we place stickers in high school bathrooms and on car windows in parking lots where teens can text a number to hear a real story about the results of using meth.

How do you find a way to talk about drugs without appearing preachy?

Our approach was to show the consequences of using meth—horrible teeth and facial sores, violence to those close to you, acts of desperation and suicide. And then let the viewer (teens) decide if using meth is worth the risk.

The idea of initiating ‘conversations’ with the audience is prevalent in the campaign and the work of the charity. Do traditional forms of advertising communication (TV, press, radio) still have a part to play in this?

Absolutely. For this campaign traditional advertising is used as the spark to get that conversation going. By utilizing provocative questions (“Will Meth change who I am?” and “What do you know about Meth?”) the goal is to get teens to question their knowledge about meth and ultimately answer that curiosity with the website.

Getting a director like Darren Aronofsky involved is quite a coup. What is important to find a talent who could convey the message powerfully?

These spots were all about intensity and nobody can bring the intensity better than Darren Aronofsky. Also, from the first phone call Darren understood that the main character in all the spots was addiction.

How did you get him?

We asked nicely.

So there you go – if you want an Oscar-nominated director to helm your ads you just have to have some manners! To check out the campaign website click here – www.methproject.org – and if you want to see all of the films in the campaign you can on our site.

This interview was posted on THE REEL here.