legal high products

1. Existing Products
Ruby Hooper

2. Mother London is a creative agency that is one of the UK’s largest independent advertising
agencies with a reputation of being one of the cooler, relaxed agencies in the world. They have
created a few pieces for Frank and one out of a set of three I have selected to look at is “how
long is a line of coke?” because I am very fond of the layout on the poster. The aim of this
campaign is to encourage younger people to seek accurate information about drugs. The work
was displayed in print form, radio advertisement and online, it aims to build an awareness
amongst an audience of people aged between 11 and 18 years old. The radio advertisement
included young people asking for advice from a selection of unlikely characters such as a parrot
or their gran, this was done to communicate that Frank knows the answer they are looking for
regarding drugs. The digital form features 10 second long clips that show the effects of drugs in
unusual scenarios with a comedic effect with a voice over saying “Nobody knows how drugs will
affect them. Talk to Frank.” What I like about this particular poster is how much it has to say but
how little is presented. The poster is not telling people to change their attitudes or behavior like
other campaigns, this one is raising awareness of a service that is available to them. The Skunk
and Coke posters are both speaking about drugs that have been around for a long period of
time while the meow meow poster
is referring to a more recent drug
with the street name of meow
meow. All three posters have a
comical essence because the image
is referring to something different
to the text. I really like the
similarity between posters, they
are easily recognized as the same
campaign.

3. Frank have campaigned on the use of cocaine in the UK, there particular campaign for this subject caused
uproar because of the sensitivity of the subject. The campaign was released on December 4th in 2008 and
cost the up to £1m in television and online advertising. The main character in the television advert is a dog
named Pablo, the name was inspired by Pablo Escobar who was the leader of the Medellin Cartel, this was
a well organised network of drug smugglers and suppliers throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s. Pablo the
Drug Mule Dog has a wry sense of humour yet manages to explain the not so glamorous adventure of
cocaine smuggling into the UK. Due to their young target audience it speaks to them on a level they can
understand while demonstrating the ugly truth behind how they got their cocaine. The way the campaign is
worded is modern and calmly speaks about the situation with graphic images, this makes the audience feel
like they can trust the advert because of the warming voice. The advert doesn’t focus all its energy on drug
smuggling but other factors such as: the addiction, heart attacks, violence, fear and personality changes
that all comes with the package of using cocaine. Following this campaign, Frank offers an ’experience’ page
to website viewers, one of which is named ‘cocaine basement’ which links closely to the Pablo campaign
and is even referred to at the beginning. The experience includes mini-games that the viewer can play and
learn about addiction, heart problems, impurities, nose bleeds, personality, law and finally about using
dogs to smuggle cocaine into the country. Frank offers other games such as ‘spliff pinball’ which is based
around cannabis and mental issues. These methods are effective due to their younger audience. Frank also
offers resources to visual learners, auditory leaners and kinesthetic so everyone has the opportunity to
learn. -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LnA-xCz5U8

4. In this section I am discussing the website ran by Legal Highs, Lethal Lows. Their target audience
is students who are in college and university, this means that their website is modern, quirky and
slick. The background is dotted but the image is easily recognized as a photograph taken in a
nightclub with vibrant pink lights and white bold text that is eye catching and complementing to
one and other, I believe that the colour scheme has a pink glow because females are more likely
to take notice in the subject than males are and pink is a colour that is closely related to
femininity. The website is easy to navigate around as it has a continuous scroller and the options
located at the top of the page direct you straight to that article on the same page as everything
else. There is a smooth transaction between background changes depending on the seriousness
of the article, the laptop/desktop webpage works efficiently but it stubborn to tampering the
page shape and size, the mobile website on the other hand looks less appealing, the layout
appears dull and there is very little engaging imagery, this is not ideal when your target audience
has the highest rate in mobile device uses in the UK. The image to the right is one that occurs
regularly on the website, it gives the page a sense of colour while making viewers aware of what
legal highs actually look like and their different substances formations.
The image below is a screenshot taken from the website of them promoting their game that is
available on various mobile devices. The logo is clearly presented and a very similar colour
scheme is followed, this keeps a close connection to other assets of the company which makes
their campaign recognizable. The game is presented fairly far down the website and is
mentioned frequently on a range of different posters.
I downloaded the game myself and I am impressed with the
quality, speed and I appreciate the idea but the game is not
interesting or brain stimulating, especially for a mentally
developed target audience. There is no story line to the game
and there is no exhilarating ambition which disheartens the
audience.
http://www.legalhighslethallows.co.uk

5. This campaign was created by the police and it is
designed to raise awareness and change behavior. I
came across this poster at college so it shows we have a
very similar target audience because my campaign is
appropriate for this age group and is my desired
audience. The poster contains little imagery and
bombards the viewer with information. The separation
between the contrasting black and white is rough and
can be similarly related to a line of cocaine. The other
form of imagery that can be seen is the skull which is
commonly associated with something deadly or death,
this speaks for itself. The different coloured text draws
attention to each individual word while the “After a
high” and “legal highs” are a larger font size which also
draws attention to what the poster is speaking about.
The audience can glance at the poster and quickly
understand what the objective is and the extra text
provides facts.
The police have included their statement badge which I believe scares the audience if
glancing because it automatically makes them believe it is illegal even though the aim
of the poster is to change behavior. When reading further into the poster you realise
that the police are actually warning the audience of the consequences which makes
them slightly more likeable amongst their target audience. There is nothing else to this
campaign, no other posters, flyers or even a website.