Building and executing a comprehensive responsible drinking campaign for U.S. Service members to reduce risk and increase readiness

Background: Excessive alcohol use is associated with increased risk of violence and suicide. In the military, 62% of female sexual assaults and 49% of male sexual assaults involved alcohol (2018).ⁱ Additionally, 34% of Service members self-reported binge drinking compared to 26.5% of U.S. adults.ⁱⁱ Without prevention and education initiatives, these behaviors will continue to negatively impact readiness and resilience. Active duty Service members are also more likely to underreport alcohol use, and evidence demonstrates this population experiences unique risk factors that contribute to alcohol use including deployments, combat exposure, time away from family, and stress.

Program background: In 2019, Booz Allen on behalf of the Defense Department (DoD), launched a new responsible drinking campaign, Own Your Limits, which replaced the existing campaign, That Guy. The new campaign is based on Service member feedback and includes new branding, messaging, and alcohol use content which reflects target audience preferences and promotes responsible drinking among Service members who decide to drink alcohol. Own Your Limits targets multiple alcohol use topics amongst 18-24 year old active duty Service members including drinking responsibly, using alcohol to cope or while in social settings, and excessive alcohol use consequences. The campaign also addresses sociocultural factors related to alcohol use in the geographically dispersed U.S. military population using powerful, targeted, innovative, and authentic content.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Prior to campaign launch, Booz Allen conducted 41 sensing sessions with U.S. Service members at U.S. and international installations to directly inform the campaign and its messaging. The health communications campaign built a responsive website to reach Service members wherever they are worldwide, 24/7. Campaign tactics align to an integrated digital strategy that builds on emerging trends to inform Service members along the behavior change continuum. The campaign practices ongoing process improvement using evaluation components and measurement tactics that utilize primary and secondary data. Activities include monitoring website traffic, social media metrics, event exhibition, and stakeholder engagement. Since campaign launch, 153,050 users have engaged in 185,357 website sessions, social media engagement has increased 1,145%, and 215,392 total materials were ordered and shipped. The campaign also has a Drinking Habits Quiz, based on the AUDIT-C; the quiz has 4,398 completions and allows a Service member to check their drinking habits and commit to responsible drinking. The team continues to assess the award-winning campaign with new efforts including a sentiment analysis and a quantitative and qualitative customer survey to inform efforts, improvements, and messaging. Future endeavors include a campaign effectiveness study.

Conclusions: Own Your Limits is an important example of using evidence-based public health and behavior change tactics to meet the unique needs of a priority, geographically dispersed population.

Implications for research and/or practice: This comprehensive, strategic communications approach can be used as a model and adapted by other alcohol prevention and education efforts. The presentation will focus on the campaign life cycle from development through today’s execution and evaluation including outcomes.

i DoD SAPR FY2018 Annual Report

ii 2018 HRBS