Dry July is a small charity that encourages young Australians to give up alcohol for a whole month and in doing so, raise money to help the lives of adults living with cancer. But often that’s easier said than done. Dry July has a brilliant ambition, but one that comes with its own sizeable challenges. Not only does Australia have a heavily entrenched drinking culture, but competition for charity funds and attention is higher than ever - a new charity is registered almost every working day in Australia. And this year, external factors such as Brexit and The Australian Federal Election were a huge distraction in the lead up to July. Without the budget to make itself heard in paid-for media, we needed to give young Australians a compelling incentive to sign up to the cause.

As there was no money for traditional media we knew we had to leverage social media to maximize engagement. Without the money for seeding we worked with Opera Australia and one of their brightest young tenors, John Longmuir. Together, we wrote the ‘Kebab Shopera’ - an extravagantly heartfelt aria about a kebab shop owner who laments the fact his late-night customers are taking a month off the booze. “Goodbye to you, my onion-breathed compadre,” Longmuir’s broken-hearted döner slinger sings to his long lost alcoholic regular, “The pain [is] so spicy in my heart.” The film was launched via YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, and our team worked around the clock to convert positive comments into positive action – registering participants to sign up to Dry July.