Saint John’s teen pregnancy rate is the highest in New Brunswick and is nearly double the national average. Those are numbers we wanted to help change. Working with the Saint John Teen Pregnancy Committee, we created the Babies: No Returns campaign. Because you can’t return a baby.
Being a teen parent will change your life forever. We wanted to make sure that message was clear, so we got together with some teens. We held focus groups with them, consulted with them on all of our ideas (from the creative development right down to the colours in the wristbands), and we casted them in the videos.
We produced four online videos (www.youtube.com/BabiesNoReturns) with our friends at Hemmings House Pictures, had silicone wristbands made, developed a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/BabiesNoReturns) and held a launch event that was packed with teens, community supporters and the media.
The results have been awesome! We exceeded our target of views for the videos, had to reorder the wristbands (they went like hotcakes!) and were featured in a 3-part series in the Telegraph Journal, were the top of the newscast on CTV Live at 5, and received coverage on many radio stations.
Check out the rest of the videos at www.youtube.com/BabiesNoReturns