According to NCH/ Action for Children 2008, nearly a third of children in the UK have been affected by gun and knife crime. COI wanted to create a campaign to raise awareness amongst young people of the dangers of knife crime and needed to create an innovative way to reach these young people and target them effectively.

Raise Awareness, Create an Impact

Cinema was selected to strategically target a hard to reach and sceptical audience in an impactful way. Cinemagoers had the chance to see either the Incredible Hulk, Ironman or Hellboy 2 at one of 18 Cineworld sites across the UK by downloading their free ticket online. The campaign also consisted of a one minute on-screen ad and ninety second live ads featuring a young male and female arguing about the dangers of knife crime. Goody bags were also available from the website, as well as being distributed at the participating cinemas.

The campaign saw very positive results from participating youngsters, with an average attendance of 40%. Cineworld, Newport saw the highest number of 10-16 year olds claiming their free tickets with a 75% attendance rate. There was a fantastic result with 3020 downloads via Bluetooth, and 7,000 goody bags were distributed. The live ads created a lot of word of mouth with 96% of the children stating that the activity in the cinema was 'shocking' and 90% said that the experience made me/other young people less likely to carry a knife.

Using cinema to implement this campaign was an effective way to target COI's target audience. The live ads and sampling created a memorable experience for the cinemagoers, fulfilling their 'awareness' campaign objective successfully. 98% of the audience hadn't heard of the 'It Doesn't Have To Happen' phrase in relation to knife crime before the film season. 96% agreed that the activity showed it is never ok to carry a knife. 66% said that the activity showed me that young people can do something about knife crime.