A downer of a spot with an uplifting, almost liltingly sing-songy soundtrack earned the number one slot in SHOOT’s quarterly Top Ten Tracks Chart. Airing during the Super Bowl telecast in the St. Louis market, the National Council on Alcoholism & Drug Abuse (NCADA) :60 “That’s How” depicts heroin’s tragic impact on a teenage boy, dramatically contrasted by a soundtrack from Mix Kitchen’s Craig J. Snider who wrote the lyrics in tandem with Jessen Wabeke, a copywriter at St. Louis ad agency Schupp Consulting.
Howard Weissman, executive director of NCADA in the St. Louis area, said the PSA was designed to generate publicity and controversy in order to bring awareness to the heroin/opiates epidemic in the St. Louis area. Weissman suggested that catchy music and lyrics made this kind of tragedy more possible to watch.
“Music played a critical role in making this spot stand out creatively,” said Mark Schupp, creative director and the project’s producer at Schupp Consulting. “We’ve worked with Mix Kitchen talent in the past, they’re known for being one of the best in the nation, but lucky for us they’re located in neighboring Chicago.”
“With just ukulele and voice, the song’s lightness contrasts the frightening visuals,” according to Mix Kitchen partner and producer Sam Fishkin. “It creates a striking juxtaposition that is indeed startling.” Perfectly timed music and lyrics written by copywriter Wabeke and Snider follows the boy’s mother at home as she finds her son moments after his overdose.
“In using the tools of drama to convey this crucial truth in a 60-second spot, we created a parallel disconnection between the visual story we see on screen and the musical story we hear. It is disturbing. It is jarring. It is painful to watch. And we must pay attention to it,” said Weissman.
Debuting on Super Sunday during the KSDK-TV St. Louis telecast of the Big Game, the spot triggered controversy and comment that spread nationally online and through varied media outlets.
Commentary
Weissman wrote a commentary explaining NCADA’s rationale for the PSA and the need to be eye-opening controversial. He wrote, “Opiate dependencies often begin when young people misuse prescription painkillers, and then shift to heroin as a cheaper alternative. The results are often catastrophic. NCADA believes that this is an issue that requires everyone’s attention. In the St. Louis area, nearly 2,300 people have died during the last eight years. To keep more kids from dying, nothing is more crucial than open communication between parents and their children and several medical, social, and political changes, or kids will continue to die.
“We acknowledge that this spot may upset some people, especially those who have suffered the loss of a loved one, and we apologize for any further grief seeing this video may cause. Hearing and seeing the grief of people who have lost someone to this devastating problem is what drives us in the work we do, without a real sea change, our young people will continue to die.
“In the last few years we have led dozens of community town halls, appeared at countless health fairs, engaged in ‘guerilla marketing’ campaigns, raised money through fundraisers, created a heroin-specific website, and delivered literally hundreds of presentations to schools, civic groups, medical professionals, and anyone who will listen. We have been doing our best, but our best has not been good enough. Young people have continued to die. The heroin/opiate problem has outpaced our best efforts to curtail it.
“We felt strongly that our community needed something else in order to wake up and take action. We felt strongly that conventional messaging was clearly inadequate. We wanted to get in people’s faces, grab them by the lapels and say, PAY ATTENTION.
“We know that the most unsettling and troubling part of the commercial is the juxtaposition of the upbeat music with the horrifying images. The stark contrast in tone is an intentional choice that reflects the contrasts of these real-life situations.
“The terrible truth is that some young people see the use of prescription opiates as a kind of lark, something fun and relatively risk-free. That perception is entirely disconnected from the reality: that experimenting with highly addictive opiate painkillers, which are almost chemically identical to heroin, all too often ends in heart-breaking tragedy. The ‘happy sounding’ music also makes it possible for the average viewer to watch what’s happening while the lyrics explain the grim details. Without the music, most people turn away; but the song, juxtaposed with the horrifying images, makes it possible to watch this tragedy unfold. We do not want people to turn away from this problem. Our community has been turning away for far too long.
“In using the tools of drama to convey this crucial truth in a 60-second spot, we created a parallel disconnection between the visual story we see on screen and the musical story we hear. It is disturbing. It is jarring. It is painful to watch. And we must pay attention to it.”
Scott Ferguson directed “That’s How” for Schupp Consulting. The song was performed by Lauren Duski.
