Ask Your Addict
Bayer · 2024
1 award: El Ojo de Iberoamérica
Strategic insight
People don't believe addiction can happen to them because it's been framed as a problem of the marginalized. By centering lived experience over medical authority, the work breaks stereotype and triggers personal reckoning.
The Format
The deceptive virtual consultation—a real-time medium that mimics legitimate medical advice—is the campaign's core lever. The reveal that the expert is actually a recovered addict forces immediate cognitive dissonance and makes the message visceral rather than didactic.
Cultural Impact
By repositioning recovering addicts as authoritative voices in health discourse, the work challenges deep stigma and reframes addiction as a systemic, not individual, failure. It models a conversation shift away from stereotype and toward peer-based harm reduction.
