drinkaware.ie website

Objective

To prevent and reduce alcohol misuse in Ireland.

Description

Drinkaware was established in March 2016 as a health promotion organisation. Its vision is of an Ireland where alcohol is not misused, and its mission is to fundamentally and permanently change attitudes and behaviours to prevent and reduce misuse. Drinkaware works towards achieving its mission by raising awareness, creating understanding and supporting behaviour change through evidence-led education and effective communications.

The website (www.drinkaware.ie) was updated in 2020, with the main sections being, Understanding Alcohol, Alcohol & Health, Tools & Resources, Parents and Research. It has the following main sections:

Workplace Wellness: Provides different pages with information about the workplace programme.
Education: Provides different pages with information about education in schools and for parents.
Facts about alcohol: Includes information on what a standard drink is, low risk weekly alcohol guidelines, cancer and alcohol, mental health and alcohol, and alcohol support services.
Advice and support: Includes information on how to reduce drinking at home, alcohol-free drink recipes, hosting mindful events, tips to drink less, sober curious and mindful drinking and how to stop drinking alcohol completely.
Parents: The parents hub provides support to parents.
Tools and resources: Includes a drinks calculator, a low-risk weekly guidelines quiz, booklets and posters, videos and how to apply for an age card.
Research: Includes information on why Drinkaware invests in research, current research projects, research reports, a research briefing series and alcohol consumption in Ireland.

In 2020, in response to COVID-19, a series of new webpages went live from March onwards as the team rapidly responded to the ‘new normal’ and its impact on the public. The content was updated regularly in line with each phase of the pandemic with advice regarding protecting mental health, parenting during a pandemic, alcohol & your immune system and how to stay well while working from home. The Drinkaware website had two new additions in 2022 - The Alcohol Dependency webpage went live at the end of August and the New Standard Drinks Calculator launched as part of the Christmas ‘Read the Label’ campaign at the end of October.

Social media

In addition to the website, Drinkaware runs regular, timely campaigns across their social media channels to inform, edcuate and increase access to practical tools and to facilitate positive behaviour change. Facebook page, Instagram page and Twitter.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the course of Drinkaware's social media strategy as they shifted their messaging to drive awarness around mental health, drinking at home, alcohol and the immune system and driving traffic to the COVID-19 hug.

Partners

Large number of commercial and non-commercial bodies.

Results

Over 450,000 people visited Drinkaware.ie in 2022; with 143,672 coming to find out more information on drink driving (+75%), over 42,000 to learn more about the HSE low-risk weekly alcohol guidelines (+115), 13,706 for advice on how to talk to young people about drinking and 26,567 visited the webpage explaining minimum unit pricing, spending on average over six minutes on the page. The Drinks Calculator remained the most popular tool and page on the website with almost 400,000 visits in 2022, a 28% increase on 2021, and over 200,000 conversions, a 7% increase on 2021.

In 2021, 47% of traffic came from organic search. 386,242 people visited the website. 1,151,509 webpages were viewed. 2.35 pages were viewed per session with an average session duration of 1.23. The top webpages viewed were the "Drinks Calculator" (30% of pageviews up 23% YoY), "Drink Driving" (increased from 4% of total pageviews to 7%) and the "Low-risk Weekly Guidelines" (increased from 2% of total pageviews to 3%).

In 2020, 552,194 people visited the website and 1,934,403 webpages were viewed. There were over 117,000 page views of the COVID-19 digital content.

In 2019, more than half a million people visited the website, with over 2 million pageviews and 314,653 people used the drinks calculator.

In 2018, the website reached 403,389 people with over 110,000 visiting in December 2018 alone. 187,781 visitors used the online calculator.

In 2017, over 185,000 people visited the website and 100,000 people used the online calculator.

Social media

2022: Facebook had 76,998 followers/likes, 9,569,750 views/impressions and 245,530 engagements. Instagram had 1,793 followers/likes, 3,087,841 views/impressions and 811 engagements. Youtube had 226,700 followers/likes, 766,700 views/impressions and 260,200 engagements.
2020: Facebook had 78,157 followers/likes, 19,016,944 views/impressions and 453,501 engagements. Instagram had 1,181 followers/likes, 9,691,215 views/impressions and 1,221 engagements.
2019: Facebook had 79,133 followers/likes, 4,996,289 views/impressions and 92,178 engagements. Instagram had 538 followers/likes, 473,084 views/impressions and 464 engagements. Twitter had 2,000 followers/likes, 60,733 views/impressions and 1,010 engagements.

Measurement & evaluation

Research conducted by Millward Browne Lansdowne (amongst a nationally representative sample of over 18's) in January 2014 showed:

86% said drinkaware.ie should be used more widely.
70% said it was effective without pointing the finger.
81% were aware of drinkaware.ie.
87% said that it is a good idea for drinkaware.ie to advertise about responsible drinking.

Website

http://www.drinkaware.ie/