The concept of this promotion was to add the real costs of drunk driving to people’s bar tabs as a way of impacting them right before they decided whether to drive drunk or not. To implement this, we went into the computer systems at the bars and added line items like “Amputation” “Wheelchair” and “Physical Therapy.” When people asked for their tabs at the end of the night, they were in for a shock. At first they were upset, but when they got the message, they were so touched that many people asked to keep their bar tabs.

People asked to take the bar tabs with them to show their friends. Then the message took off. In just one month, it became a Trending Topic on Twitter, gained 200,000 views on YouTube and was mentioned in hundreds of blogs. The case video was discussed so extensively that it became one of YouTube’s most discussed videos in both Brazil and Spain. With 503,000 mentions on Google, Bar Aurora and Boteco Ferraz received tons of attention. As for talking to drunk drivers, on the nights of this action there was an 80% increase in consumers hailing cabs from these locations.