"Control Tonight" Interactive Website

Accompanying the advertisements in the "Control Tonight" campaign is an interactive website that encourages viewers to partake in an imaginary situation much like those described in the advertisements. The website url is simply www.controltonight.com and from the very first page viewers are asked to immerse themselves in a simulated narrative. Since the overall campaign depends largely on the forceful interpolation of viewers, it is not surprising that the website opens with a headline that starts, "Calling the shots starts with you." From here visitors are asked "What if you didn't watch out for your friends during a night of drinking? Find out what could go wrong, and how you can prevent it." Below this statement is a box titled: "Personalize the Experience" where visitors are asked to enter in their name and the names of two of their friends on order for the website to produce a simulated personal narrative about what could possibly go wrong on a night out drinking. I participated in this simulation, entering in my name, Julie, and the names of two of my friends, Andy and Taylor. These are the names that can be seen in the following screenshots below.

The scenario begins with setting the scene. The simulation states that it is 8:35PM and I am going out to my favorite sports bar to watch "the big game" with some friends. By starting out the scenario with an environment I am assumed to be comfortable with, the program is creating a narrative that makes the night seem like a night like any other, where my friends and I can be carefree and just enjoy each other's company.


In the next step of the fabricated evening, it is 9:42PM and my friends and I are "in a groove" and have had three pitchers of beer. To escalate the situation, the storyline adds that we are now about to start taking celebratory shots in response the game going on at the bar. This point in the narrative serves to show how things can escalate in a seemingly harmless manner and the language used in the text makes it seem like an extremely relaxed situation. According to the next step in the scenario, it is 10:03PM and I have lost a companion. We have taken several shots of various liquors and my friend Taylor has decided to head home because she is feeling sick. Andy responds to her departure angrily and begins to show the first signs if belligerence. This step illustrates how things can take a turn in the middle of a good time when alcohol is involved and is attempting to show how alcohol makes people act in ways that they normally wouldn't.



Next, it is 11:10PM and I have entered into a drinking game with my friend, Andy. This is sure to end in one or both of us being extremely intoxicated and sets the stage for what is about to happen in the next scenario. At 11:59PM, almost an hour after the drinking game has finished, the cops are being called because Andy has gotten into a bar fight. The next and final scene finds andy being arrested and contains discussions of his new "criminal record."



This entire fabricated narrative is an attempt by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to personalize the experience for viewers with the hopes that the high levels of interpolation will make the situations seem more real. They do this in a number of ways. The first is by the use of the second person tense to make viewers feel as if the web content is addressing he or she personally. The second way is their contextualization of the fabricated situations in the lives of the viewers. By having the viewer supply the names of people they know (and presumably care about) to be incorporated into a narrative about the dangerous of alcohol abuse, the website is able to make these situations more plausible and pertinent to the life of the viewer.


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