A fascinating post appears on the Harvard School of Public Health website that reviews the “Harvard Alcohol Project” from the late 80s and early 90s. The piece documents the concerted efforts of Harvard to effect changes in public behavior by building content into popularly consumed media. Specifically, the coordinated effort between Harvard and major television networks to include the concept of the “designated driver” into mainstream television programming. The results were remarkable.
A key passage from the piece: “Using 1988 as a baseline, more than 50,000 lives had been saved by the end of 1998.”
As perhaps the ultimate case-study on “product placement,” this effort demonstrates the power of consumer media to influence behavior.
Google Ngram agrees that the effort to include ‘designated driver’ into the lexicon was a success:
