Case ― Karlskrona Kommun

Today, many young people's attitudes towards drugs are normalized. Modern drugs are seen as harmless luxury stimulants easily available for anyone to buy. And with the contact between seller and buyer being more unseen than ever, taking place deep inside various messaging applications and in closed forums, there’s a well-hidden distribution going on 24/7 just tap away on your mobile. All too accessible making it possible to initiate a drug transfer during school hours or while together with family and friends.

Milou task was to get parents and legal guardians better knowledge of and understanding of the situation teens in the town of Karlskrona face when it comes to drug use and handling on an almost daily basis. But also, make them understand that help exists and how to get it. Through close cooperation with the police, schools, local municipality and the social administration, Milou was able to get an insight into the real-life dialogues between young people and the sellers of drugs, examples of situations they find themselves in and reports around actual substance abuse within this group.

One main challenge with creating the communicative concept was to avoid blaming and pointing fingers – to shame, something that is otherwise so easily done. We wanted to stay away from standardized messages like “it is very dangerous to use drugs” or similar. Instead we quite early on in the process identified a communications direction that is much closer to home, something that most young people (and at least a few of their parents) could relate and react to.

We created a context around the everyday young person doing everyday things. But while at it, also show that hidden underneath all this “normal” activity, there could very well exist a situation where drug abuse and the selling and buying of the same, is common. Hidden in plain sight.

Through social media, bus-TV and digital billboards, we decided to show snapshots of this to many unknown reality. Show that on the surface “normal kids” could very well be affected by and addicted to substance abuse. And how hard it is for friends and family to tell. Could you really spot the difference between a school-weary teenager and someone who smokes cannabis? In addition we created a longer film for digital distribution where an emotionally painful but common situation was acted out by young amateur actors.