The archive · PR & Stunts · Marketing decision · 2022–2023
City of Balen gives sober clubbers free drinks to stop pre-drinking
Balen, Belgium rewarded young people who arrived sober: a clean breathalyser test earned a Sobercoin token for three free drinks.
City of Balen
What it had to solve
The small Belgian city of Balen wanted to reduce how much young people pre-drink before going out. Research showed people drink less overall when they arrive at the party sober, so the fight was behavioural, not about curfews or prices.
How it works
The small Belgian city of Balen tried something unusual to stop young people pre-drinking before a night out: it handed out free drinks. The logic came from research showing that people who arrive at a party sober drink less overall.
The mechanism was a breathalyser test at the entrance to the club. If the test came up negative, the clubber received a Sobercoin, a token for three complimentary drinks, so showing up sober became the moment the evening rewarded them rather than the moment they missed out.
The D&AD awards archive preserves the scheme in its PR work and records no participation or drinking figures. The case stands on the idea: a small city reframed the fight against pre-drinking as an offer to the sober arrival instead of a warning to the drunk one.
Why it lands
- A breathalyser at the door makes sobriety verifiable in the moment rather than a matter of trust.
- Free drinks use the same social occasion that drives pre-drinking to reward the opposite behaviour.
- A coin worth three drinks gives the sober arrival something to show friends, spreading the habit socially.
- The city turned anti-binge messaging from a warning into an option young people would actively choose.
What it did
The D&AD awards archive files the scheme under PR and records no before-and-after drinking statistics. What it documents is the incentive flip: the city answered pre-drinking with free drinks, but only for the breathalysed-sober arrival, making the desired behaviour the one that gets rewarded.
What you can take
When the unwanted behaviour is a common vice, reward the safe first step with the very pleasure people were after.
Since then
The D&AD awards archive lists SoberCoins as PR work for the City of Balen, and its page reports no drinking-rate figures. The documented aftermath is the pilot itself: at club entrances, a clean breathalyser test was exchanged for a Sobercoin token worth three complimentary drinks, keeping the reward loop attached to the city's nightlife rather than relying on education campaigns alone.
Sources
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