Facts Fight Fentanyl

Facts Fight Fentanyl | California Department of Public Health

This integrated campaign is one of the projects I’m most proud of.

In 2023, the California State Health Assessment revealed the leading cause of death for 15–24 year-old Californians: drug overdose. This is tragic and, I’m sure you’ll agree, crazy. A relentless, everyday emergency cutting down young people in their prime.

As Creative Director, I led and won the competitive pitch, and continued to guide the campaign from strategy and concepting through testing, stakeholder approval, and full-scale production. I served as the creative lead not just for our internal team, but also for our partner agencies, collaborating closely as they transadapted the work for Spanish-speaking and various Asian language-speaking communities across the state.

During research, our strategy team uncovered a huge disconnect: unchecked fear, stigma, and rampant misinformation were leading people to associate overdoses with "others" – the unhoused, those who used drugs like heroin or meth, vulnerable people living on the fringes. Not their own friends. Not their family. Not them. And if they didn’t see themselves in the crisis, why would they listen?

This was the creative challenge: craft a campaign unexpected enough to command attention, clear enough to undo fatal misconceptions, and empowering enough to give viewers concrete ways they could help reverse the crisis, all without a whiff of scare tactics or PSA clichés

Film

In this campaign, knowledge isn’t just power – it’s survival. That idea comes to life through our “Informed Humans,” everyday people who’ve learned the facts about fentanyl and use that knowledge to help save lives.

To make sure those facts stuck, we leaned hard into metaphor. Because “naloxone is an opioid antagonist” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, or lodge in your brain. But if an overdose is a fire, naloxone is the extinguisher. As for fentanyl-laced pills, think of them as the sketchy creeps who crash your party and ruin everything.

These ideas unfold in a stripped-down, liminal world – a blank space that feels approachable and more than a little surreal. It’s where abstract concepts become clear, and complex truths become simple enough to stick.

In such a stripped-back world, every detail carries weight. Our director brought in a choreographer to use movement as a storytelling tool. She worked with each actor playing a fentanyl-laced drug in “Party’s Over” to embody their specific brand of menace, and transformed the crowd in “The Light” into a radiant army of naloxone-carrying guardians.

THe Informed Humans | Photography

We also shot a series of still portraits featuring our talent in their Informed Human (or Ser Informado) shirts, facing the camera, looking strong and empowered. Some appear solo, others in pairs or small groups, showing physical closeness: a hand on a shoulder, an arm around a friend. These images quietly push back against one of the most dangerous myths out there – that you can overdose just by touching someone who’s overdosing. (You can’t, by the way.)

Out-of-home

For out-of-home, we used visual storytelling to get life-saving facts across in a single glance.

Digital

We used contextual headlines so that readers would feel specifically addressed in the moment. We referenced gaming culture on Twitch and dating lingo on Tinder (All these brill headlines by Senior Copywriter Amy Char).

Social

We also made custom content for TikTok and Snapchat, putting our Informed Humans in a GRWM video (last step: bring naloxone), and a podcast-y conversation.

Landing page

All paid media drove to FactsFightFentanyl.org, made with dev partner Berlin Rosen, where people could dig deeper into the facts and learn more about things like test strips, finding naloxone, recognizing the signs of an overdose and being prepared to respond.

Results

Credits