The Vaper Among Us
Rigging Gen Z's most popular quarantine game to help teens discover the real-life COVID crew impostors: their friends who still need to get the vapes off their backs
Challenge
Using the precedent set by the Get The Vape Off Your Back campaign that vaping disrupts your social life, leverage the uniqueness of this point in time to convince Gen Z to stop vaping — because not only is it good for them, it’s good for COVID-stricken society as a whole.
Insight
Most of us still have a small social circle we risk exposure for to keep our sanity, and we’re all picky about who makes it into that safety “bubble” — even teens. Yet, someone who vapes could put the only social circle you have left at risk of exposure to COVID-19.
Case Study
Watch the project overview here or continue scrolling to explore the creative on your own.
The Vaper Among Us
How do we get Gen-Z to see that vaping makes you an impostor in your own Covid crew?
It turns out, millions of Gen Zers are already skilled at discovering Impostors because of the ever so popular game, Among Us — a “default social platform for young people stuck in quarantine.” So, we’ll frame the problem within the game they already know.
Gameplay Explained
Unfamiliar with Among Us? Here’s how it works: 4-10 players are placed in a space-themed simulation and must complete a series of tasks. The twist?
One of them is secretly an Impostor trying to infiltrate and kill off the other Crewmates before they can finish the tasks. Crewmates must successfully complete the tasks or work together to identify the dangerous Impostor and vote them out to win.
A New Impostor
We’ll partner with InnerSloth to randomly rig gameplay rounds over a 24-hour period by sneaking in a new Impostor, with a “vape on its back”.
Gameplay Changes
Gameplay will continue as usual with a few subtle twists.
Players, unaware of the new changes, will find “positive cases” to report when they stumble upon fallen Crewmates instead of the usual “dead bodies.”
Victory or Defeat
Once the game reaches victory or defeat, the true Impostor will be revealed by coining a new version of the popularized phrase players and viewers know well: “vapers are sus, vote them out.” The PSA will point out that their sacred Covid crew is at risk if one of them vapes.
Social
We’ll also push the stunt on social channels like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. Through short, quippy videos playing off of the interface and language players already know, we’ll reiterate our important PSA that vapers are sus, vote them out.
Memes
Even people who don’t play the game are familiar with its characters and inside jokes through all of the Among Us meme content already flooding the internet.
These pieces of content would allow teens to confront their friends in a way that’s familiar to them: calling them out through memes on social platforms.
Twitch Partnerships
With more than 60 million users playing Among Us daily, the message is sure to stick. But to amplify reach, we’ll partner with popular Among Us Twitch personalities HasanAbi and Pokimane to stream their games.
Earned Media Potential
Videos with #AmongUs on TikTok have amassed more than 44.5 billion views already, so let’s get #TheVaperAmongUs trending too.
By partnering with the new social space where millions of 13 to 20 year olds spend this new COVID era, we will depict exactly how easy it is to overlook the danger vaping has on teens’ sacred quarantine bubbles. All while applying social pressure from their peers on those teens who do vape to get the vape off their back.
Lex Jin Coelho: art director/designer
Bella Courtenay-Morris: copywriter
One week
(Young Glory competition brief)
Adobe Illustrator, Premiere Pro & After Effects