Pubdate: Sun, 19 Jul 1998
Source: The Herald, Everett (WA)
Contact:  
Website: http://www.heraldnet.com/ 
Author: James McCusker, Your Business

ALLIANCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT, MEDIA A BAD MOVE

Christina Simmons of the San Diego Zoo assures us that a camel's breath will
faithfully reflect his most recent meal. So, if you and your tentmates are
about to doze off and suddenly notice a distinctive odor, you should quickly
establish who ate what at dinner. if no one admits to the alfalfa and red
fescue combo plate, grab a flashlight and check around. There's a camel's
nose inside the tent.

If you consider mass marketing the tent, the nose in this instance belongs
to a camel named Uncle Sam. On July 9, President Clinton announced a $2
billion, five year media blitz to convince young people not to take drugs.
Half the money will come from the taxpayers; the rest, it is hoped, will be
donated by various media organizations.

Much of the discussion following the announcement focused on whether the ads
will have any effect. Any marketing expert will tell you that changing
deeply embedded behavior patterns through advertising isn't easy. And other
analysts point out hat over the past decade or so television networks have
donated more than $3 billion worth of air time to the anti-drug messages,
with underwhelming results.

Still, it might work. The old advertising program was dependent on public
service announcements that television stations tended to air during the
"insomniac hours." It was also dependent on the public spirit and generosity
of the networks. Whatever one thinks of the current state of those virtues
at the networks, the hard fact is that at-risk young people don't watch much
network TV.

The new anti-drug effort, with its $200 million annual budget, will purchase
time on television including cable TV, in specific time slots and on
specific programs that the target market -- young people of middle-school
age -- actually watch. There will also be advertisements placed in print
media, on billboards, and on the Internet.

The new anti-drug program is "for the children," and is therefore,
presumably, beyond criticism. That is why what little fire it has drawn has
been focused on the technical issues of advertising effectiveness. The
potential effectiveness of the new anti-drug program, though, is not the
real issue.

What is far more important is that the fundamental structure of the
anti-drug campaign is changing, and government's relationships to the media
industry, and to the public, are changing with it. The feds have suddenly
become a player in the media industry, a "client" with a $200 million a year
budget. Even with today's bloated media budgets, that will earn VIP
treatment by the media moguls.

The real question is whether we want our government to get VIP treatment by
the media moguls. And if it does get this treatment, how will that change
things? To start with, a client relationship is different from a regulatory
relationship. It is shaped by the needs and the character of the client. Big
advertising clients are legendary for being capricious, demanding and
difficult to please. (Just think of the clients Darren and Samantha had to
deal with in "Bewitched."}

A regulatory relationship, by contrast is shaped by the law that creates it.
For many years, the federal government's relationship with the broadcast
media was directly influenced by the laws that spelled out how radio and TBV
licenses would be granted and how, generally, the public interest in
broadcasting would be represented. Over the past two decades, thought, the
federal government has become less interested in regulating broadcasting,
and has increasingly viewed it as something that the market should and would
take care of. Whether or not that was a good idea is a matter of opinion.

Starting a new relationship, that of "client," however, is another matter.
Money buys influence. Newspapers and broadcasters frequently wrestle with
this problem when it comes to their own advertisers. Particularly when
dealing with bad news of any sort, it is a natural instinct to treat a
client differently from a stranger. Still, it's one thing for the local
weekly to give its major advertiser, "Vlads House of Garlic," the benefit of
the doubt with its health inspection results, and quite another for the
national news media to give a positive spin to its "client's" latest tax
plan or foreign policy adventure.

The relationship between politics and the media is already something of an
unholy alliance, and the introduction of a billion-dollar cash flow isn't
likely to improve its character. Worse, though, is that the government will
quickly become accustomed to treating the public as a "target market." When
the anti-drug campaign peters out, another program, to promote something
else that is good for us, will follow.

Some years ago, at the forming of the U.S. Information Agency, the Congress
expressed its concern about using taxpayer money for domestic propaganda.
Maybe they weren't wrong.

- ---
Checked-by: Melodi Cornett