The archive · Public & Social · Marketing decision · 2024
Danish Cancer Society's 'Party Crashers' shows a drinker his worst drunk selves
Danish Cancer Society's film has a young partygoer meet the worst drunk versions of himself — the drinker sees his own behaviour from outside.
Danish Cancer Society
What it had to solve
Danish Cancer Society and foundation TrygFonden produced a public-service film about drunken behaviour, a subject where the person behaving badly is the last one to see it. The film's own question sets the task: if you could see yourself drunk, would you act the way you do?
How it works
Danish Cancer Society and TrygFonden made a public-service film about drunkenness, and its opening question carries the whole idea: 'If you could see yourself drunk, would you act the way you do?' The trouble with drunk behaviour is that the person doing it is the last one to see it.
'Party Crashers' answers the question literally. Over one surreal night, a young man keeps being confronted by the worst drunk versions of himself — his own behaviour returns to him as unwanted guests who crash his evening.
The device does the argument's work: instead of being told how badly people behave when drunk, the viewer watches the protagonist watch himself, then has to answer the same question. The film entered the D&AD awards archive as a Direction entry; the page records no view or behaviour-change figures.
Why it lands
- Showing the drunk self as a character makes invisible behaviour visible — the drinker sees himself the way other people do.
- The 'would you act the way you do?' question puts every viewer in the protagonist's place rather than lecturing them.
- Framing the confrontation as a surreal night of unwanted guests makes a serious subject watchable instead of preachy.
What it did
The film turns a familiar warning into an encounter: instead of being told how people behave drunk, the viewer watches it and is asked to answer the same question. The campaign sits in the D&AD awards archive under Direction, with the Danish Cancer Society and TrygFonden credited as clients; the archive records no view or behaviour-change figures.
What you can take
Behaviour people never see needs an outside view: turn the drunk self into a character and the warning becomes something they watch.
Since then
'Party Crashers' is preserved in the D&AD awards archive under the Direction category, with the Danish Cancer Society credited as brand and the Danish Cancer Society and TrygFonden as clients. The archive page records no reach or behaviour figures, so the case rests on the mechanism itself: a warning turned into a first-person encounter with one's own drunk behaviour.
Sources
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