On 21 November, spiritsEUROPE hosted the Annual RDI Meeting in Brussels, bringing together European and international experts involved in devising and running initiatives to encourage sensible relationships with alcohol and reduce harmful consumption.
Participants welcomed the fact that the meeting took place amidst a positive context in Europe marked by significant and consistent reductions in heavy episodic drinking, underage drinking and drink-driving in recent years. While such progress was seen as encouraging, everybody agreed that more needs to be done.
In order to strengthen the real-life impact of Responsibled Drinking Initiatives (RDIs) in Europe, a particular focus was put on two questions. First of all, how to make best use of new & innovative approaches for RDIs and second, how to improve evaluation and feedback loops to measure progress and refine RDIs moving forward ?
Regarding the first point, recent insights in behavioural economics and nudging offer a number of new and interesting approaches that can be successfully integrated into RDIs to increase their effectiveness. In addition, digital technology provides a whole new world of opportunities to tailor messages and content provision via social media to specific audiences, at specific times, in specific locations. When combining digital campaigns with new, digitally enabled businesses such as Uber, entirely new and helpful services can be created that, for instance, encourage people to make better use of safe riding opportunities home (e.g. via Uber) and effectively reduce drink-driving.
Regarding the second point, continuous, rigorous evaluations are key to review progress made. Again here, digital tools offer new and exciting opportunities to obtain real-time feedback on the pick-up rate, user acceptance and interaction levels with a campaign.
If you want to find out more about our RDIs in Europe please take a look at our dedicated website www.drinksinitiatives.eu and click here for the latest available summary report.
