Underage drinking damages lives
Underage drinking parties can lead to tragic consequences: alcohol poisoning, fights with deadly weapons, rape and unwanted pregnancies, theft or destruction of property, and car accidents with injuries and death. Despite all that, underage drinking flourishes when youth believe they can’t get caught, and parents look the other way – or worse, actually provide the alcohol and/or location. Although Shawnee County, KS, has ample underage drinking laws on the books, the laws weren’t being respected. Something needed to change.

Underage Drinking Task Force
Shawnee County’s Safe Streets Coalition signed formal agreements with Alcoholic Beverage Control, the Topeka Police Department and the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office to create an Underage Drinking Task Force. Working together, law enforcement coordinated their procedures to strengthen their response to underage drinking. Next, Crime Stoppers agreed to offer substantial rewards for anonymous tips about underage drinking parties. Now existing laws could be rigorously enforced.

Getting the word out
Working with Safe Streets, jones huyett Partners helped let the community know that engaging in – and supporting – underage drinking can have severe legal consequences. And we promoted how people can provide their anonymous tips to Crime Stoppers. We created a set of high-impact, informational posters for schools and public places, informational pocket cards, billboards, banners and a pair of memorable TV commercials. With support from area schools and local media, Shawnee County got the message that law enforcement is serious about reducing underage drinking.

Citations more than double!
During the previous 12-month period, only 88 citations related to underage drinking had been issued in Shawnee County. But now, tips started coming in and law enforcement took action. In less than eight months, Crime Stoppers had received 80 tips. More than 186 citations were issued for underage possession and consumption, buying alcohol for minors and hosting underage drinking parties. Citations more than doubled in only two-thirds the time!

Consequences we can live with
Not everyone agrees underage drinking should be a law enforcement issue. But the laws on the books are there to be enforced. When youth and adults recognize the legal consequences of underage drinking, and know the laws will be enforced, perhaps they’ll think twice before attending or hosting underage drinking parties. We at jhP believe promoting the legal consequences may save Shawnee County families from underage drinking’s potentially life-shattering consequences.

Recently, jhP partner Visit Topeka Inc. wrapped up its 2nd Annual Topeka Treasure Hunt, a two-month tourism campaign giving Topeka residents a chance to decipher clues and win prizes by taking photos of 15 unique attractions and locations in Topeka. Here, Shalyn Marsh, Visit Topeka’s Communication and Marketing Manager, explains the significant role that social media played in this year’s event.

Using social media to promote the 2010 Topeka Treasure Hunt proved to be a great addition to our campaign, giving us a cost-effective way to reach thousands who might not have heard about the Hunt otherwise. Since August 2009 Visit Topeka has been growing its social media presence with regular posts, notes, photos and conversations with fans. By the time we took the Treasure Hunt online in May, we’d established a solid core of online friends willing to share and repost our content.

For this year’s Treasure Hunt, we:
•    Created a Facebook event
•    Promoted the Treasure Hunt with a Facebook ad
•    Promoted the event in general posts on Facebook and Twitter
•    Added a photo of each person completing the Treasure Hunt to our Facebook album
•    Highlighted the Treasure Hunt in our monthly e-newsletter and on our website’s home page.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that our social media push paid off fast, gaining us more than 100 new Facebook fans right after the Hunt began – even before the Facebook ad ran. Our Facebook ad ran for just six days (we spent $116.65), and visitors responded with 479,656 impressions and 177 clicks.

It was pretty cool to find people talking about the Treasure Hunt online. (And I saved many Topekans a phone call to our office by answering questions about the event online, too!) The campaign ended with us handing out 509 Treasure Hunt information packets, receiving 185 completed photo albums from participants and giving prizes to 20 winners.

We’re already planning next year’s Treasure Hunt, and I’m looking for even more ways to use social media. Although our efforts took time and planning, using social media dramatically expanded our ability to promote this event with very little money.

Results matter. That’s what makes the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Bronze Quill Awards special. The Bronze Quill is designed to honor projects and campaigns that show measured results. While other awards are primarily judged on the somewhat subjective “creativity” of a piece, the Bronze Quill Awards consider creativity and then dig deeper – evaluating how the piece meets and exceeds the intended goals and objectives. This makes winning a Bronze Quill Award for our client partners especially gratifying. We get to prove the campaign worked for our client.

Wednesday, five jhP client projects were selected to receive the Bronze Quill Award of Excellence. Selected were the Penwell-Gabel Funeral Home and Crematory 2009 Coffeyville Calendar, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas “I Work for You” newspaper campaign, jhP “Creative Crunch Time” tradeshow booth, se2 ACLI tradeshow campaign and the Penwell-Gabel Funeral Homes, Crematory & Cemetery “Green” PR campaign.

jhP is very lucky to work with a fantastic group of client partners who entrust us to champion their brands, collaborate with them on amazing creative and work with them to build their business and increase their ROI. It’s nice to be recognized, but the real prize is doing work you love for people you truly respect and admire.

Bravo to Visit Topeka, Inc. for being one of 106 Destination Marketing Organizations around the world to achieve accreditation through the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program. The team at Visit Topeka works hard to market the city of Topeka, enhancing Topeka’s overall self-image and pursuing destination development by building stakeholder relationships.

“From visitor inquiries to visit servicing and hospitality,” Olivia Simmons, president and CEO of Visit Topeka said, “we implement strategic procedures to fully assist people who choose our city to visit.”

Congratulations from your partners at jhP for such a noteworthy accomplishment!