The Iowa Department of Public Health launched a website last year called “Stay Classy,” and it’s a pretty incredible attempt at marketing to Millennials. Have you seen it yet? Have you seen the flyers?
Imagine the D.A.R.E. program topped with a backwards baseball cap, throw in some of that famous 20-something ‘tude, and you’ve pretty much nailed it.
The message is simple: People in Iowa need to stop drinking so much alcohol. However, faced with one major problem (i.e., Nobody wants to spend the evening reading about the dangers of alcohol), the Iowa Department of Public Health loaded the website with drunk-shaming photos, video clips of drunk kids doing incredibly drunk things, and various ‘humor’ quirks.
The photos and videos are presented with a strong “don’t let this happen to you” overtone, but the intent is clear. These photos and videos are entertaining, and Stay Classy is capitalizing on their entertainment value to promote alcohol awareness. It’s quite the scheme!
Oh, but they know what you’re thinking.
“We’re not trying to poke fun,” the website states. “Instead we’re trying to show how more than a few can make people pretty unclassy.”
See? They’ve totally got it covered.
The drunk-shaming photo posts are accompanied by a suite of social media sharing options, but not for gawking, remember. It’s all about spreading awareness! As far as who is actually in these photos or where they came from, it seems as though most are just pulled from various comedy websites with their original URLs still intact. One image is pulled from a website called funnypica.com, while another comes directly from all4humor.com.
To its credit, one section of Stay Classy relays contact information for nearby prevention and treatment facilities, but apart from spitting out addresses and phone numbers (Looking for a URL? You’re better off with Google), its functionality is far too limited.
So there you have it, Iowa. Stay classy!
