In recent years we have seen an increase in the number of injuries at the launch of fireworks, especially among young men. So how can we get this target group to wear big plastic protection glasses on New Years Eve, when they´re also dressed up in their nicest clothing.

Typical similar campaigns has shown eye-injuries from the hospital, with the intention to scare the target group. This has not had any effect. So we had to come up with a different idea to reach these young men! We knew they´re on Facebook and that they enjoy something fun to use their time on, especially around christmas where they have a lot of spare time.

We launched The New Year Cannon on Facebook some days before christmas, where our target group could shoot different christmas things straight in the face of the hosts (which also host the most popular radio program in Norway, and in many ways are heroes for our target group).

The New Year Cannon reached around 500,000 people (20% of Norway's population) on Facebook in just under 2 weeks.

Of those who purchased fireworks, 34% were more concerned with using protection glasses this year versus last year. The number of serious eye injuries decreased by 33% from the year before. (The survey was conducted by the analysis institute YouGov, on a nationally representative sample of people in the period 5-7. January, 2012.)Of those who followed the campaign on Facebook, almost 60% were men between 18-24 years of age. Right where we planned and wanted to be.