- Background
The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign was launched in 1998 and was
authorized for a five-year period by Public law 105-277. Those provisions were codified in Title 21 of the United States Code starting at section 1801. Although the authorization expired in FY 2002, funds have been appropriated to continue the Campaign in 2003. ONDCP's reauthorization proposal will include the reauthorization of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.
The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign uses appropriated funds to conduct a broad-reaching, national effort intended to prevent America's youth from using drugs. It is the first fully comprehensive federal government communications campaign to focus on youth drug use. It combines paid commercial advertising, grassroots public outreach and specialized supporting communications efforts. The Media Campaign and its communications strategies were designed with direct input from the public health community, top commercial marketers, leaders from the mass communications industry, and national experts in behavioral science and youth behavior change. The Campaign's strategy is to reach both youth and their parents and is based on established behavior change theories, forms of which have been used in other government campaigns and are employed by non- governmental organizations and private sector marketers. The Campaign seeks to reinforce existing anti-drug attitudes in youth, and change attitudes for those youth who have developed positive attitudes towards drugs. Although it takes time, ultimately, this behavior change process reduces the proportion of youth who use drugs.
Advertising
ONDCP has operated the Media Campaign using advertising produced predominantly by the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA), which develops anti-drug ads by recruiting volunteer advertising agencies to provide creative concepts on a pro bono basis. The Campaign has developed ads outside of the PDFA process where requirements to address special needs or to fill gaps in the full range of ad coverage, including the multicultural plan, required these exceptions. The Media Campaign develops message strategies with the counsel of leading researchers, and then works with PDFA to develop advertising to support them. Media Campaign staff work with PDFA staff in the development of the PDFA-produced ads, with assistance and resources from the Campaign's principal contract ad agency and a special panel of behavior change experts. In a departure from PDFA's pro bono model, to facilitate recruitment of ad agencies to create ad concepts on a pro bono basis, appropriated funds cover the production costs necessary to turn ad concepts into finished ads. Finally, the Media Campaign, through its principal contract ad agency, buys media time and space in local and national media outlets for the placement of Campaign ads. In accord with the authorization, the Media Campaign only buys media time or space if a media outlet agrees to match each paid ad unit with a pro bono unit of equal value or other in-kind contributions.
Multi-Media
The Media Campaign employs media planners and buyers who rank in the industry's top tier. Its media plan ensures that parent and youth audiences see Campaign messages in many forms and in virtually every venue, from network television to billboards and bus shelter panels and from malls and video arcades to favorite Web sites. The advertising strategy seeks to surround target audiences with Campaign messages wherever and in whatever form they are reached by media.
Campaign tracking studies and independent evaluations agree in their consistent findings of high rates of awareness of the Campaign's brands and messages, from 60 to 80 percent, depending on age category, rates that rival top consumer brand names. According to Milward Brown, a leading national market research firm, the average brand awareness among the nation's top 1,400 brands is just over 62% for adults. Another Milward Brown study, BRANDZ, looked at the Campaign's brands for our adult and youth audiences. The study determined that awareness of the Campaign's brand for the adult audience, the Anti-drug, was at 60%. This awareness level is comparable to that of such leading consumer brands as Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream (59%) and Cingular Wireless (65%). For youth, the Campaign's youth brand, "My Anti-drug," awareness is at almost 80% which is comparable to levels achieved by Mountain Dew (83%) and Motorola (79%). Through this consistent messaging, linked by Campaign branding, the Campaign is producing cumulative and compounding effects, which we believe have contributed, along with other prevention efforts, to the welcome down-turn in youth drug use cited above.
Multicultural Advertising
The Media Campaign includes the largest directed communications program to multicultural audiences of any Government campaign. We recognize that, to be successful, our messages must go beyond the dominant course of American communications to find ethnic minority audiences who are often hard to reach through the use of mainstream media due to cultural identities, customs, and languages.
Many of our multicultural populations have high rates of youth drug use that must be addressed, but some of these require specially designed communications, incorporating authentic cultural cues that reflect their unique heritages and cultural identities. The Campaign produces culturally specific, and where appropriate, in-language advertising for African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, numerous Asian national backgrounds, and for Asian-Pacific Islanders. In some instances, it is the first time culturally appropriate or in-language anti-drug information has reached these audiences.
Public Outreach
In accordance with the broadly accepted and recommended best practices of the marketing communications industry, the Media Campaign incorporates a range of public communications programs to complement its national advertising messages. Communications professionals have found that it takes more to seed long term behavior change than national TV and print advertising alone. For these messages to have resonance and persuasive power, target audiences must also see and hear them in their everyday lives. When youth see the drug issue accurately depicted, including the down side of drug use, these impressions synergize with messages they see in the Campaign's advertising. The same is true when they experience these messages reported on their local news, find them featured on their favorite Internet sites, see them in the programs or newsletters of their schools, YMCAs, local clubs and civic organizations, or encounter them in the promotional materials of major corporations whose brands are part of their daily lives.
The Media Campaign operates a nationwide, multi-faceted public communications program to produce these complementary messaging effects at the local level. Through its public communications contractor, the Campaign conducts news media outreach, creates and distributes anti-drug information products, works with national and local public service organizations, operates Web sites, and facilitates the opportunity for entertainment industry writers and editors to meet and hear drug experts who bring science to the discussion, and hear true stories of drug involvement from youth victims themselves. Finally, the campaign works with major corporations who lend their reputation and brand loyalties to the anti-drug effort by generating co-branded communications, in many forms, which carry the Campaign's messages.
Grassroots Public Information Programs
News media content analyses show that less than ten percent of media coverage of marijuana-related stories address the harmful effects of the illegal drug. To address this limitation in media coverage, the Media Campaign planned and launched a long-term program of media outreach to encourage more relevant and accurate media coverage. After a public announcement of the new marijuana campaign in September 2002, we saw the following results:
- The monthly average number of media stories on marijuana and youth rose from 30 to 97 in the four months following the launch of the public information and advertising campaign.
- Monthly media impressions on the subject of marijuana and youth increased by a ratio of almost three-to one to with an average of 37.8 million media impressions generated per month from September through December 2002. (Measurement of media impressions is an industry-accepted practice of determining how many targeted media users potentially see or hear stories.)
- Favorability of media coverage (i.e. stories including ONDCP messages about youth and marijuana risks) jumped from 26 to 78 percent immediately following the launch of the marijuana initiative and continued to remain at nearly 50 percent in the following two months.
- The overall share of media coverage on the subject of marijuana which specifically addresses the risks associated with marijuana increased from 7 to 9 percent.
- The most common message picked up in media coverage is "Parents are the most important influence in a kid's decision not to do drugs," a principal campaign communications objective.
(NB: Comparisons are made to benchmark period of January 2002 - September 2002.)
As this public information continues, the Media Campaign is taking nationally recognized medical and prevention experts in marijuana directly to local reporters to discuss the myths and realities of marijuana, as well as arranging radio and television interviews with the Director and experts in child health, safety, and education. A series of media briefings have been moderated by education correspondent Betty Ann Bowser of the "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer." Roundtables have been held in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Denver, Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. Upcoming roundtables are scheduled for Raleigh-Durham, Seattle, Portland, Detroit, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Dallas, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Tampa, and San Francisco.
Web-based Communications
Web-based communications have become a standard complement to broadcast and print advertising in private sector marketing programs. It responds to the advertising tenet: go where your customers are. In research findings released last year by Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research, more youth 8-17 chose the Web over TV, radio and the telephone as the medium they would want if they could not have any others.
The Media Campaign is particularly proud of its Web-based programs, which are pushing back, near-single-handedly, against the malignant growth of pro-drug material that today permeates the Internet. The Campaign operates two high-traffic Web sites, Freevibe.com, designed for youth, and TheAnti-Drug.com for parents, as well as several specialized sites such as, LaAntiDroga.com, for Hispanic parents, and DrugStory.com, designed to provide information for writers and editors of news and entertainment media pursuing factual information about drugs and their effects. Through advertising and content exchange partnerships the Campaign distributes its anti-drug messages to popular teen and parent destinations across the Web.
The youth site, Freevibe.com, currently averages over 500,000 user sessions per month, with average session times (over 6 minutes) that exceeds popular commercial sites such as SonyMusic.com (3 minutes 47 seconds) and ChanelOne.com (5 minutes 25 seconds). Freevibe's visitors are kids who are curious about drugs. More than 12 million have visited the site. They find their way to Freevibe through Media Campaign advertising on Internet search engines like Yahoo and Google, and popular youth portals like IGN and Bolt.com, and through content-sharing partnerships negotiated with these and similar Web destinations. The sites enable the Media Campaign to convey accurate, science-based information about drugs, especially marijuana, directly to youth in confidential, personal and highly effective communications.
The Campaign's parent site, TheAnti-Drug.com, delivers factual information about all forms of drugs and parenting information related to keeping children drug-free. It offers advice columns from leading parenting experts and provides actual accounts from real parents across the country who have had to face the problems of drug-abusing children. TheAntiDrug.com also provides parenting information related to drugs in Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Cambodian. We incur about 300,000 visits to The AntiDrug.com site per month.
The Campaign complements its parent-targeted Interactive messaging with outreach to the place they spend most of their time, at work. Surveys by human resource managers reveal that parents of youth who have substance abuse problems are less productive, have lower morale, and use a greater percentage of a company's healthcare costs. Through the Campaign's @Work program, millions of workers are receiving anti-drug information and parenting tips to keep their kids off drugs through their workplace Internet and Intranet systems, and company newsletters, posters, and pamphlets. Participating in @Work are leading corporations such as the New York Stock Exchange, Arvin Meritor, AT&T, HP/Compaq, Northrup Grumman, and industry associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Soap and Detergent Association, the Direct Selling Association, the Direct Marketing Association, and the National Restaurant Association, as well as a number of Federal agencies.
Corporate Sponsorship Program
With the initiation of the Corporate Sponsorship Program, the Media Campaign added an entirely new dimension to its integrated communications. Launched in December 2001, the Corporate Sponsorship Program grew rapidly throughout 2002 and continues to expand with new, household-name corporations joining the effort each month-proof that with clear Federal leadership, America's private sector is contributing greater efforts against a common danger to the nation's youth.
Forty of the nation's top corporations, representing the financial services, fashion, telecommunications, transportation, grocery/food, insurance and publishing industries have stepped forward to contribute their talents, resources, and brand names to help multiply the impact of the Campaign's communications. Companies like AT&T Wireless, Cellular One, Safeway, Dole Foods, Greyhound, DKNY Jeans, Borders Books, Lillian Vernon, Cox Communications, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blockbuster, Northwest Airlines, and many more are carrying the Campaign's anti-drug messages in millions of direct mail communications, lending their brand recognition in association with the Campaign's brand, donating free advertising space, promoting anti-drug messages together with their own national promotions, and providing in-store presence in thousands of retail locations. Much of this exposure for the Campaign's brands is simply not available for purchase and could not be obtained without the participation of these corporate partners.
Through our corporate partners, youth and their parents across the country are now encountering the Campaign's messages in places and forms they don't expect to-- in the mail; where they rent their videos; on signage at major construction sites; where they shop for food, clothing and books; in community murals; in their favorite malls; and when they travel. More than the sum of its parts, this added communications resonance enriches the Campaign's other messaging to create a credible, unrelenting national voice against drugs, a voice, however, that must be sustained to protect America's children.
Supplementary Communications-Ad Council
National Media Match Program
The original Campaign authorization specified that the operation of the Media Campaign should not supplant existing public service advertising support from local and national broadcasters. Responding to this requirement, the Media Campaign joined with the Advertising Council, the nation's oldest and largest public service advertiser, to create the National Media Match program. The principal goal of this effort was to create a mechanism to provide some of the pro bono match value generated by the Campaign's paid advertising buys to air public service advertising, in desirable time slots, from certain government agencies and nonprofit organizations whose messages reinforced or augmented the Media Campaign's core advertising. The Media Campaign contracted with the Ad Council to help manage this process.
Since its beginning in January 1998 and projected through September 30 of this year, the Media Campaign's National Media Match program has provided $447 million in pro bono television and radio time to air anti-drug related public service announcements of 85 groups or agencies. Examples of these groups are: the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Council for Alcoholism & Drug Dependence, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Harvard Mentoring Project, the National Crime Prevention Council, the National Fatherhood Initiative, 100 Black Men, YMCA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the National Mentoring Partnership, 4-H, America's Promise and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
The operation of the National Media Match enables the Media Campaign to address Congressional concerns that the paid-nature of the Media Campaign would supplant existing broadcaster support to public service advertising. At the same time, it serves to complement the Campaign's specially targeted anti-drug messages with additional anti-drug and substance abuse ads from other Federal agencies, and with messages that promote good parenting and positive youth development programs--all of which support the Campaign's youth anti-drug communications goals.
Community Anti-Drug Coalition Campaign
The Media Campaign also contracts with the Ad Council to develop and manage a public service ad campaign that promotes community anti-drug coalitions. Over the past two years, this campaign has generated nearly $197 million in donated media time from radio and television broadcasters, magazines, outdoor and Interactive media, making it one of the Ad Council's top public service campaigns. In developing the coalition campaign ONDCP involved community coalition leaders from around the country in campaign planning and received strong positive feedback for the unique support it provides the coalition movement.
The Media Campaign has established an informal task force to solicit input and feedback on the campaign, and, at various times, the Ad Council and the pro bono advertising agency have met with various coalition representatives. In addition, the Media Campaign generates different opportunities to allow local community coalitions to develop publicity for their local efforts. For example, earlier this year, the Media Campaign issued a video news release featuring sound-bites from ONDCP's Deputy Director and local community coalition leaders and youth which generated local news stories in 61 cities. And in the spring of 2003, the Media Campaign will help to drive volunteers directly to local coalitions by paying to tag the names of approximately 200 local coalitions and their phone numbers on ads appearing in local media outlets. The Media Campaign has received strong positive feedback for the unique support it provides community coalitions.
- Major Campaign Revisions
When I took office, I analyzed the Media Campaign and found that new direction was needed. Although the Campaign had made good progress in influencing America's parents to get more involved in talking to their children about drugs and in monitoring them to prevent drug use, the outcomes in changing youth attitudes and behavior were not showing the progress expected.
In the spring of 2002, I directed a series of changes to the Media Campaign to improve its performance. These measures included:
- Elevating the target age of focus to 14-16 year olds. Although the Campaign's ads address youth from 9-18, in order to achieve the greatest effect, the Campaign must focus the design of ads on a pivotal, smaller age segment within the overall youth target to gain the greatest overall result. For most of the Campaign, the focus had been on the 11-13 age group. However, data showed that the sharpest increase in use was with the 14-16 year- old segment. This change was included in the design of two new groups (or flights) of youth ads whose development began in spring 2002. The first of those new flights went on air in October 2002 and was replaced by the second in January 2003, which is on-air now.
- Raising ad testing standards. I directed that all TV ads be tested prior to airing. Previously, not all TV ads had been tested; rather, a representative ad out of a group of new ads would be tested to ensure message objectives were met and that no unintended negative consequences would result. Moreover, due to the frequent occurrence of receiving new ads late from the development process, and with the pressure of air-date scheduling deadlines, testing had often been done after ads had begun to air. In some cases ads that tested poorly had to be pulled from air, disrupting schedules and damaging overall advertising effectiveness, sometimes for months. Under new guidelines, all TV ads will be qualitatively and quantitatively tested prior to airing. Additionally, testing standards were raised to ensure that new ads met a higher level of testing effectiveness.
- Focusing on marijuana. A key element in the new strategy for the Media Campaign is to concentrate Campaign communications and dollars on marijuana since it is by far the most widely used illegal drug by youth. We are convinced that by attacking the broadest area of youth drug use we have the best opportunity to achieve the greatest possible impact on overall youth drug use. Where previously, advertising impact had been dissipated through fractionated efforts against a range of different drugs, such as heroin or cocaine, this sharpened focus against marijuana is aimed directly at the core of the youth drug problem. This focus is reflected as well in the launch last fall of an interagency Anti-Marijuana Initiative. It is through ONDCP's sponsorship of this initiative, with the Media Campaign playing a leading role, that we expect to begin to turn around the dangerous and long-neglected tolerance of marijuana use by our youth.
- Becoming more involved in ad development and at an earlier stage. ONDCP's experience showed we could develop ads more directly on strategy if Media Campaign staff became more involved in the creative development process and entered the process at an earlier stage. As new ad briefs are developed by the Media Campaign in conjunction with PDFA, involving Media Campaign staff early, such as when volunteer PDFA creative teams receive their briefs to create new work, would produce better communication and more effective advertising for the Media Campaign audiences. The Media Campaign and PDFA agreed on a new creative development process implementing these and related changes. This new process was followed by the creation and development of the new youth ads that first aired last fall, the second group of which are currently on air.
- Use of harder hitting ads. I asked for harder hitting, more sharply focused ads. This involved shifting to an emphasis on ads based on a negative consequences communications platform, with positive consequences advertising used to complement this strategy. Campaign feedback mechanisms indicate that new ads introduced last fall based on this guidance are gaining some of the strongest awareness levels we have seen.
- Shift of Resources to Youth Effort
As we approach the coming advertising program year, we are changing our media buying emphasis to reinforce the portion of the Campaign directly targeting the youth audience. Media buying for the upcoming plan year that begins July 1, 2003 will feature a budget reallocation at approximately a 60/40 ratio, youth to parent media purchases. Parents will remain a key element in the Media Campaign. Although the change in policy reduces parent-directed communications somewhat, it reflects progress already achieved with parents, yet maintains support for the significant role parents play in addressing youth drug use.
- New Direction: Treatment-Early Intervention
Early Intervention
In support of the President's National Drug Control Strategy, the next phase of the Media Campaign will introduce treatment into Campaign communications, beginning with an emphasis on Early Intervention. Although the Campaign's initial authorization envisioned and provided for Treatment as a topic, the Campaign thus far has focused on prevention. The Campaign will maintain, in fact increase, its emphasis on youth prevention, focusing on marijuana. However, I believe it is crucial to begin to address those youth who are still using drugs on a regular basis. Our goal is for the Media Campaign to introduce an Early Intervention initiative in September 2003.
The intent of the initial round of Early Intervention advertising and supporting communications is to reach parents, extended family, friends and influencers of youth (coaches, teachers, doctors, nurses) with knowledge so that they can identify initial signs of drug use, as well as when, what, and how and to whom they can turn to in order to stop their teen's drug use early and safely, before it becomes an addiction. We are also looking at messages targeted directly at these youth and their peers. Messages will acknowledge the need to intercede, the understanding that addiction, even if in early stages, is a treatable medical condition, and offer help with obtaining resources, from expert advice to referral information for appropriate levels and forms of professional assistance. Media Campaign staff, in collaboration with our demand reduction specialists, have convened expert panels and conducted the first of several rounds of focus group research planned to refine the Campaign strategy and identify appropriate messages that will be most effective with target audiences. Advertising creative teams will be briefed soon in order to launch the first round of ads in the fall.
Stigma of Addiction and Public Perception of Drug Treatment
Our concept for introducing treatment messaging into the Media Campaign envisions additional content in subsequent or supplemental rounds of advertising to address the issue of addiction stigma, one of the most formidable barriers to successfully moving family and friends to intervene when youth have become habitual users. Planning is also underway to determine the most effective way to introduce the issue of treatment efficacy into the Media Campaign's communications programs. This is an essential element in an overall concept to recognize and get help for the thousands of youth whose lives have been disrupted by the effects of addiction. A widespread public perception that treatment does not work is a serious obstacle to getting professional help for youth who need it. Parents and family members must be convinced that treatment programs are effective and, in fact, essential in confronting the medical challenges of drug addiction.
New Campaign
Taken together, the fundamental changes in the Campaign's approach that we instituted last spring, the marijuana focus launched last fall, and the introduction this coming fall of a Treatment/Early Intervention initiative, mark a substantially new and essentially re-directed Media Campaign. We are moving the Campaign forward to take on new challenges and achieve real progress in helping America's youth avoid drugs or get help when they have become drug involved. Although we consider this a natural and responsible evolution of the Media Campaign, we recognize that we must gain the support of Congress to fund the significant tasks we are assigning the Media Campaign. We firmly believe that with the Congress' support, the Media Campaign will continue to be an effective drug education and prevention program in achieving real impact on the lives of America's youth.
- Evaluation
The NIDA/Westat Evaluation
In 1998, Congress authorized ONDCP to conduct the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. In implementing the Campaign, Congress required ONDCP to meet several conditions, including "that the Director [of ONDCP] shall … report to Congress within 2 years on the effectiveness of the national media campaign." ONDCP turned to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to design and implement a scientifically rigorous evaluation of the Campaign. In September of 1998, NIDA awarded a five-year evaluation contract to Westat, a Washington, D.C. area contracting firm specializing in conducting large national surveys. Westat partnered with the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania and the National Development and Research Institute, Inc.
ONDCP launched the Campaign in January 1998 with Phase I, a pilot program in 12 cities around the country. Phase II, the nationwide pilot test, was launched in July 1998. The fully integrated Campaign (Phase III) was launched throughout the following year. During this time, Westat and its subcontractors designed and tested the evaluation, which entered the field in November 1999. Because the Campaign was launched nationwide before the evaluation was in the field, the optimum design of a control/test sample could not be employed. Additionally, a clean baseline with data collected prior to the launch of the Campaign could not be established.
To overcome these limitations the NIDA/Westat team implemented a longitudinal (i.e., the same parents and children would be interviewed several times over the course of the evaluation) survey of parents and youth from the same household. The strengths of this design were (1) data on parent and child pairs from the same household could be compared; (2) it took advantage of the natural variation in exposure to the Campaign so that comparison could be made on the outcomes of interest between those with high exposure to the Campaign and those with low exposure; and (3) the longitudinal component would help to sort out the sequencing of the association between exposure to the Campaign and changes in the outcomes, thus providing evidence of causation.
To assess whether the Campaign is having the desired impact on the target audiences, the evaluation considers the results from three categories of analyses: (1) changes in trends over time in the outcomes of interest; (2) the association between these outcome trends and exposure to the Campaign's messages; and (3) delayed or longitudinal analyses of the sequencing of exposure and outcome. To the degree that results are favorable and consistent across all three categories of analyses, the stronger is our claim that we have achieved a positive impact of the Campaign on parents and youth.
The original requirement from Congress was that ONDCP report on the effectiveness of the Campaign within two years. The NIDA/Westat evaluation team designed an evaluation that was capable of detecting changes of approximately 3 percentage points on average in the desired outcomes. Based upon observed changes in drug use and related measures historically, the evaluation team considered that it was reasonable to expect the Campaign to be able to produce a change in outcomes of this magnitude over two years.
Data are collected in seven 6-month waves, covering January through June and July through December of each year (the first wave ran from November 1999 through June 2000). The seventh and final wave is currently being collected and will end on June 30, 2003. Approximately 8,000 youths (age 9 to 18) and 5,500 parents of youth are being interviewed three times over the course of the evaluation.
In order to provide timely feedback to the Campaign planners, a series of semi-annual reports has been produced following each six-month wave of data collection by about four or five months. This is in contrast to the typical program evaluation, which results in a single report being issued after the program has ended. To date a detailed report on the research design and 5 semi-annual reports have been submitted to Congress. The sixth and final report will be submitted by the end of this year.
Findings from the Evaluation
The evaluation collects data for youth on a number of social norms (e.g., perception of friends' use of marijuana, other peers' use of marijuana, parents disapproval of "your" marijuana use, friends disapproval of "your" marijuana use, and disapproval of "your" marijuana use by most people important to you), measures of self-efficacy to refuse marijuana, attitudes toward drug use, intentions to use, and drug use and related behaviors. For parents, the Campaign's messages focus on monitoring their children's time and behavior, talking to them about drugs, and engaging in fun activities. Outcome data assessing whether they are learning these concepts and implementing them and whether they are having an impact on youth outcomes are collected. Additionally, the evaluation collects measures of general (all anti-drug advertising) and specific (Campaign advertising) exposure that can be used to test the strength of the association between exposure and changes in the outcomes over time. The most recent report from the evaluation was the fifth semi-annual report submitted to Congress in November 2002. Highlights from that report include:
Youth
- Trends in outcomes: There was a significant decrease in the social norm index (unfavorable) and a significant increase in the self-efficacy index (favorable).
- There were no significant changes in outcomes/exposure associations for exposure to campaign messages--meaning that exposure to the Media Campaign messages has not yet resulted in changes in youth behavior.
- Neither exposure to general anti-drug ads or specific Campaign ads was associated with initiation of marijuana use. This finding counters the troubling preliminary finding from the Wave 4 report, released in May 2002, that suggested that increased exposure to Campaign ads was associated with increased initiation of marijuana use.
- A review of the longitudinal data indicated that 4 of the 8 measures indicate statistically significant negative trends (i.e., the higher the exposure to the Campaign, the more negative the reported attitudes, beliefs, or intentions of youth). These four measures include the associations between general and specific exposure with intentions to not use marijuana; general exposure and social norms; and specific exposure and self-efficacy.
Parents
- Positive parent findings continue, with more and more parents reporting over time that they are talking to their children about drugs, know and understand the value of monitoring, and are indeed monitoring their children.
- The cross-sectional data show that exposure to anti-drug ads is related to an increase in parent reports of talking cognitions and behavior; monitoring cognitions; and parent reports of doing fun things with their children.
- However, the longitudinal analysis only found a favorable impact for exposure to general anti-drug ads (not limited to the Campaign ads) and talking behavior and reports of engaging in fun activities with your kids.
- To date, the improvements in parents' self-reported behavior and attitudes appear not to have yet influenced youth self-reported behavior.
Adjustments to the Campaign Based on Evaluation Findings
As noted above, the evaluation results serve as feedback to the Campaign planners. Generally, the findings from the fifth semi-annual report are consistent with those reported in the earlier fourth semi-annual report, released in May 2002 just a few months after I took office. In response to the results from the May report suggesting that the Campaign had not yet produced the anticipated improvements in youth anti-drug attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and behavior, ONDCP instituted the following changes to the Campaign:
- Increased focus on marijuana: The new Campaign focuses more explicitly on marijuana and its negative consequences. National survey data indicate that marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug among youth. Given the wide range of competing messages, ONDCP believes that by focusing primarily on marijuana the Campaign will be able to break through the "clutter" to reach youth.
- Change in the youth target: Survey data also indicate that one of the most at-risk age groups for initiation of drug use and transition from occasional to regular use is teens aged 14- to 16-years-old. ONDCP believes this is a critical age group that should be the primary focus in developing Campaign ads (younger children will be reached with the same ads as these youth usually aspire to be like the older "cooler" kids).
- Strengthened copy testing processes: ONDCP is now using a much more rigorous process for copy testing television advertising, including more stringent criteria for determining whether to air a particular ad and the requirement that all television ads be tested prior to airing. Due to the extensive reach of television and the high levels of awareness being generated, it is critical that only the most effective messages are aired.
- Increase in level of ONDCP oversight: To ensure that the media buys are cost efficient and conducted in a timely manner, ONDCP has become more involved in guiding the development and production of more direct and hard-hitting ads at an earlier stage. This saves time and money ensuring that only those messages that meet the Campaign's strategy needs are produced.
Evaluation of the New Media Campaign
The new Campaign incorporating these changes was launched in October 2002-in the middle of the Wave 6 data collection. The evaluation began asking the sample respondents about their exposure to these ads the following month. However, this meant that at the conclusion of Wave 6 in December 2002, the evaluation had only two months of data on exposure to the new Campaign.
ONDCP consulted with the NIDA/Westat evaluation team to discuss what steps could be taken to provide a fair, accurate, and timely assessment of the new Campaign. The evaluation team noted that two months of data (i.e., November and December 2002) would not be sufficiently robust to assess the Campaign and report on results in the scheduled sixth semi-annual report due in May 2003. The evaluation team further noted that combining data from waves 6 and 7 would provide a sufficient sample size and may encompass an adequate period of time to allow for comparisons on the cross-sectional associations between exposure to the Campaign and outcomes prior to the launch of the Campaign (November 1999 through October 2002) and following the launch (November 2002 through June 2003). This approach, however, would not benefit from analyses of the longitudinal component (i.e., that part of the analysis that lends a causative explanation to the sequencing of the associations between exposure and outcomes) because only one round of post-launch data will have been collected on the entire sample by the end of June 2003. The evaluation team believes, however, that this limitation is slight since any observed improvements in the outcomes over this period of time can reasonably be attributed to the impact of the new Campaign since there has been little other new drug prevention activity occurring over the same time period.
Based upon this input, ONDCP decided to delay reporting evaluation results on the effectiveness of the new Campaign until the data from Wave 7 (January through June 2003) could be combined with the Wave 6 data. This approach will provide ONDCP and Congress with a more robust assessment of the impact of the new Campaign. Therefore, the report following collection of Wave 7 data will focus on the assessment of the new Campaign. This report, which is the final report under the current NIDA contract, will be released at the end of this year. This also means that it would be counterproductive to produce the regularly scheduled sixth semi-annual report in May 2003.
However, in order to provide Congress and the public with a preliminary assessment of the new Campaign's effectiveness and to fill the gap left by the cancellation of the sixth semi-annual report, ONDCP is preparing an evaluation report comprised of analyses of data drawn from other sources, including copy-testing, ad tracking data, and content analysis data collected by the Campaign's contractors, and a specially commissioned round of the PDFA's Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS). The following are brief descriptions of these evaluation elements:
- Copy Testing. The Campaign's media contractor tests all television ads prior to airing to determine whether respondents can identify the main message(s) of the ads and whether the ads are likely to move specific belief and intention statements (e.g., smoking marijuana while driving is dangerous; smoking marijuana can impair your judgment; and whether a person is more or less likely to use marijuana after seeing the ad). Copy testing results for the new marijuana campaign will be compared to those from ads created prior to the new Campaign.
- Ad Tracking. Once the ads are being shown, the Campaign's media contractor interviews youth at shopping malls around the country each week to assess whether the ads are changing beliefs and intentions toward drug use. Again, results following the introduction of the new Campaign will be compared with tracking results prior to the changes in the Campaign. Some of the measures to be assessed include:
- Attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and knowledge about illegal drugs and drug use.
The intention to use illegal drugs.
Awareness of and reaction to the Campaign efforts among a representative sample of tweens (ages 11-13) and teens (ages 14-18).
Attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and knowledge about the relationship between parenting skills and youth drug use (e.g., whether youth are aware of an increase in parent monitoring).
- Content Analysis. The Campaign's non-advertising contractor launched an outreach initiative with news media outlets in conjunction with the new youth marijuana campaign to provide accurate information about the harmfulness of marijuana. To assess the impact of this effort, the contractor has tracked and analyzed the content of news articles from major news organizations across the country over the past year. This analysis will assess whether there has been an increase in the reporting of the dangers of marijuana use since the launch of the new Campaign.
- Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS). The Partnership for a Drug-Free America is conducting a special PATS with funding from ONDCP that will focus on the impact of the new Campaign versus the previous year as measured by last year's PATS data. The report will provide current, past year, and lifetime data on use of marijuana and other drugs among youth in grades 6 through12, awareness and perceived effect of anti-drug advertising, and anti-drug attitudes and behaviors.
Continuing Evaluation of the Media Campaign
While the report and its supporting data described above will provide a useful preliminary assessment of the impact of the new Campaign, these data are not sufficient to provide a continuing independent and rigorous assessment of the Campaign over the next several years. Consequently, ONDCP will continue its agreement with NIDA to conduct the evaluation of the Media Campaign.
The current NIDA evaluation calls for a seventh and final wave of data collection to be completed on June 30, 2003, with a final report submitted to ONDCP by the end of the year. In order to continue to provide ONDCP and Congress with an assessment of the effectiveness of the continuing Media Campaign, ONDCP is asking NIDA to continue to conduct the evaluation. The continuation of the Campaign's evaluation will occur in the following two stages:
- Extension of the current evaluation. NIDA will extend the current Westat evaluation for an additional year through a modification of the existing contract. Data will be collected under this modification from July 2003 through June 2004. This will permit data collection to continue uninterrupted for another year. The evaluation report for this period of data collection will be submitted to Congress at the end of 2004. There will be little modification to the existing evaluation plan and the data collected given the short time frame of the current contract.
- Redesigned evaluation. While data are being collected under the extended evaluation, NIDA, in consultation with ONDCP, its Campaign contractors, and outside experts, will conduct a thorough review of the existing evaluation to determine the extent to which it needs to be changed to better align with the changing focus and objectives of the Campaign. These changes to the Campaign are the result of many factors, including budget constraints, research and evaluation findings on the effectiveness of the Campaign to date, and informed opinion on the best way to achieve the Campaign's goals and objectives. Upon completion of this review, NIDA will develop a statement of work containing the specifications for the revised evaluation and compete and award a new contract.
ONDCP believes that this approach accomplishes two objectives. First, it provides continuity in the assessment of the effectiveness of the Campaign. Second, it ensures that the evaluation will continue to fairly, objectively, and independently assess the Campaign as it continues to involve to meet the changing challenges of youth drug use.
Creative Control
Since the inception of the Media Campaign, ONDCP has worked closely with the Partnership for a Drug Free America to produce the bulk of the Campaign's advertising. We do not propose to change that relationship. We continue to regard the PDFA as the principal source of the Campaign's advertising materials.
However, ONDCP has been asked on several occasions whether PDFA should be the only source of advertising for the Media Campaign. It is our view that not only would this be unworkable as a practical matter, but it would not be in the best interests of the Government, as it would preclude the Director of ONDCP from exercising the responsibilities of his office.
During the course of the Campaign, ONDCP has found it necessary on numerous occasions to seek support directly from individual advertising agencies to produce required ads that were not possible for development in PDFA's process. These occasions have frequently involved ads for our multicultural audiences and were needed to fill gaps in the multi-media presentation of ads. For example, PDFA's process produced new TV ads but was unable to produce the corresponding print ads. As a result, these required ads needed to be developed by another source. Moreover, the Campaign requires numerous small, narrowly focused niche ads to support its "Influencer" audiences: coaches, doctors, school nurses, business and industry, and the entertainment community, for which PDFA has told us it is impractical for them to become engaged. In the vast majority of these instances, the creative work has been done pro bono. However, in some instances, to meet the needs of the Government, ONDCP has had to pay for these costs. For example, ONDCP has produced all of its Interactive advertising outside the PDFA process throughout the entire Campaign.
Moreover, in the conduct of ONDCP business, we have recognized cases involving the Media Campaign for which the Government's responsibility to act dictated quick action and direct management in developing certain new advertising, making it unworkable to engage the PDFA process, which entails recruiting volunteer agencies to identify and allocate appropriate pro bono creative talent to a project. Such a case occurred following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. ONDCP saw the need to educate young people and their parents about the role drug money plays in the support of terrorism, as an adjunct to the Media Campaign. The urgency of the situation was paramount. Additionally, sensitive, previously unreleased information necessary to complement the advertising required close and frequent coordination with Government intelligence sources, including the CIA, the Department of State, the Department of Defense and the FBI.
ONDCP found that because of the urgency and the sensitive coordination requirements, it would be impractical to develop these ads through PDFA. We turned instead to our principal advertising contractor, which completed and aired the first of the drugs and terror ads in less than 90 days after being formally tasked. It is clear to us that, however infrequent, there may be other occasions where the imperatives of policy and ONDCP's unique responsibilities suggest the need to proceed with a narrowly directed, government managed solution. There are and will be situations where the Government must take direct responsibility and control; in this case, for some elements of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.
As stated above, ONDCP continues to regard PDFA as the principal source of Media Campaign advertising. However, it will be necessary in some cases to obtain advertising directly from our contract agency or other sources. In the discussion of creative control and the sourcing of the Media Campaign's advertising, a distinction has been put forth between ONDCP paying for production costs of new ads, which is the current policy, and paying for the creative development costs of new ads. We find that adherence to this distinction is impractical and unworkable. When we have had to obtain some new ads from sources other than PDFA, we have asked suppliers to provide creative development on a pro bono basis. For example, our principal contract advertising agency and its subcontractors have supplied all of the creative development work on a pro bono basis for the entire series of drugs and terror advertising and about half of the multicultural advertising. However, in sourcing other ad requirements, we have not always been able to secure pro bono creative work. Although infrequent, we have had to pay for some creative costs, and we may need to do so again. Additionally, for five years, ONDCP has paid the creative costs for 100% of its interactive advertising.
Therefore, flexibility is imperative, based on our experience in the actual operation of the Campaign.
- Conclusion
The Media Campaign plays a leading role in the President's Drug Control Strategy. The excellent results from the 2002 Monitoring the Future survey are indicative of the Campaign's impact. This is reinforced by results from the PATS 2002 survey which documents the fact that high numbers of teens are seeing anti-drug advertising, and that a significantly increased percentage of those same teens say that seeing anti-drug advertising made them less likely to use drugs.
In addition to directly contributing to reductions in youth drug use, we believe the Campaign is accomplishing much more. We firmly believe the Media Campaign has been principally responsible, along with other public and private efforts, for raising the collective consciousness of the nation concerning illegal drugs in our society. And as the drug issue returns to grassroots America, a climate of disapproval of drugs, so crucial to teaching and protecting our children, is returning as well. We urge the Committee to fully fund the President's request of $170 million for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign so that it can continue its pioneering role in leading our national efforts to protect our youth against the scourge of drugs.
