Although the number of people dying from road traffic accidents has been divided by 2 in the last 10 years, France is still paying the highest price in Europe with 4,620 deaths in 2007 [1]. It’s 40% more than the UK [2] and most of all, alcohol was involved in France in 27%  of road traffic deaths compared to 17% in UK (WHO world report can be found here).

Young adults in danger

While they represent only 9% of the French population,  22% of those killed in 2008 by road accidents were 18-24 year olds [3].

In 2008, an online survey was conducted on young drivers in 8 European countries, ordered by the French Road Safety Association and the French Association of Insurance Companies. This survey revealed that if the young Swedish, Polish and English are the biggest drinkers of alcohol during parties, the French, with their Latin neighbours (Spaniards and Italians), take more risks driving: during their last evening party, 1 in 4 young Frenchmen drove after drinking alcohol and 1 in 10 drank more than 2 glasses.

Happy Night : A Serious Game to support advertised campaigns

After the death by drowning of an intoxicated 23 year old man who was exiting a disco, the municipality of Nantes (France) decided to create a serious game.  Its objective: to built adventure video games with messages on the prevention of risk behaviors related to binge drinking. This action contributes to a general approach towards awareness and prevention of young audiences and aims to publicize the risks of binge drinking, the limitation of these risks and the need for responsible behaviour for oneself and for others.

This serious game called Secret Happy Night has reached its 3rd episode and is available both in French and English. In this game, you are Pan European security agent “Jacques Baveur” trying to arrest a dangerous guy.

Remind you of something ? Yes ! Jack Bauer, the hero of the American TV show “24″. In a humorous way, the game immerses you in the night life, where you will be confronted with people who have consumed too much alcohol. You will also have to make choices that may keep you sober and fit for the mission, or put you on the floor … Eventually, the game helps the player wonder about his or her drinking habits and those of others.

To launch this health game, the creators used an innovative teasing strategy using social media. In April 2009 they announced, through targeted groups on Facebook and town university student associations, that they were opening an actual night club similar to that in the game.  To get a sneak peek they offered free tickets to discover it on-line.  According to M. Jean-Noel Février, the Communication Manager of Nantes Municipality, that very day, they had 2,800 connections and after six months, they reached almost 10,000 visitors.

It’s still too early for feedback and significant data from road traffic and hospital emergency admissions on what kind of impact Secret Happy Night may have had on binge drinking. However, one might consider that this original strategy has helped the city of Nantes to take the lead in innovation for this prevention campaign, investing in an unusual territory for a community service.

[1] : WHO Road Safety Status country Profile for France
[2] : WHO Road Safety Status country Profile for UK
[3] : French Association for Road Safety