Super Bowl Spot Cautions Against Prescription-Drug Abuse by Teens WASHINGTON -- The White House drug office will use its first Super Bowl spot in four years to caution that the biggest teen drug danger could be the legal medicines stored in parents' medicine chests. The White House drug office's Super Bowl spot features a drug dealer complaining that his business is down because teens are getting high from abusing drugs in the medicine cabinet. The spot is part of a 12-week multimedia campaign that for the first time switches the focus from teens to their parents, and delivers a loud warning that it's no longer just illegal drugs that put teens at risk. [continues 563 words]
Report Says Campaigns Have Little Impact On Youth WASHINGTON -- A study commissioned by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has concluded that the advertising program of the White House anti-drug office has had little impact on its primary target: America's teenagers. Conducted jointly by the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Westat, a 30-year-old research firm in Rockville, Md., the analysis concluded that "there is little evidence of direct favorable [advertising] campaign effects on youth." [continues 407 words]
Budget Cut Less Than Expected; Ogilvy's Fate Uncertain WASHINGTON -- The White House youth anti-drug ad campaign apparently won't have have to be scaled back as much as first feared. A House-Senate conference committee last night recommended a $145 million appropriation for the campaign, a figure far closer to the House's $150 million figure than the Senate's $100 million. President Bush had requested $170 million for the campaign, after receiving $150 million last year. Higher budgets in past [continues 359 words]
Also Stops Study That Found Campaign Wasn't Working WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- The White House anti-drug office will end its controversial drugs-and-terror advertising campaign and, in a reversal, shift more of its 'You killed me,' says the ghost of a little girl to a U.S. office worker in one of the White House anti-drug campaign's cancelled ads. $150 million budget toward children's media as it fights for Congress to extend the program another five years. [continues 394 words]
Continue Campaign's Marijuana and Terror Themes WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will run two ads during Sunday's Super Bowl broadcast, as well as two on the pregame show on Walt Disney Co.'s ABC. Two of the Super Bowl spots are new work from Interpublic Group of Cos.' McCann-Erickson Worldwide, New York, for the Partnership for a Drug Free America. The ads are part of a "negative consequences" campaign meant to show that marijuana is not a "harmless" drug. In one spot, a 40-ish couple is shown looking worried about a pregnancy, but it turns out it is their daughter who is pregnant, who had unprotected sex after using marijuana. [continues 191 words]
Fcc Rules Against Ad Council Public service announcements broadcast under the auspices of the White House drug office advertising program must identify themselves as being part of that program, the Federal Communications Commission ruled today. As a result of ruling, broadcasters will be forced to insert taglines proclaiming "sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy" in many spots now appearing on TV and radio. The FCC action was a defeat for the Ad Council, which previously petitioned the agency to allow anti-drug ads to run without the identifying information. The council's earlier petitions alleged that such an identification requirement would interfere with the anti-drug message and prompt some participating media companies to pull their support. [continues 181 words]
This Is Your Conscience. This Is Your Conscience On Drugs. Advertiser: White House Office of Drug Control Policy Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, New York Star Rating: 3.5 Thus the basic message of the latest pool of spots from the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, which once again seeks to explode the notion of drug use as a victimless crime. We'll see. So far, the main victim has been the drug office itself. When the campaign broke on the Super Bowl drawing a connection between drug money and terrorism, the critics pounced. [continues 507 words]
Advertising Versus Integrated Marketing: Which Makes More Sense? The world of integrated marketing -- the process of reaching target audiences with a variety of marketing techniques -- is definitely not an ad-centric world, and therein lies the problem. Most ad agencies still want it to be, and more and more clients are looking for solutions beyond traditional media. That's also the major reason the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Partnership for a Drug Free America, the organizations that are supposed to be working together to slow teenage drug use, have ended up fighting each other at every turn. [continues 900 words]
Dear Editor, Interestingly, in his column, The Violent Side of Marijuana Use: White House Drug Office Spots Aim For Public Conscience, Bob Garfield was able to correctly tie methampetamine and opium to violence, but not marijuana. This is the main problem with the latest ads from the White House. Methamthetamine is a growing problem in this country. This year Afghanistan had its largest poppy crop in history. Both of these drugs and their derivatives can have devastating consequences, and have been tied to violence and terrorism. Despite that, the White House feels it's more important to demonize a drug that the public has a more favorable view of, marijuana. I predict this ad campaign will fail due to its creators' misplaced priorities. Jason Marrs Mr. Marrs is a marketing communications specialist for a health-care agency. He received his BA in marketing management from New Mexico State University. [end]
Demands 40% Cut In White House Anti-Drug Ad Budget WASHINGTON -- Reacting with anger to WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide's win of the White House drug office account, as well as to a report saying the office's ad program hasn't shown success, a Senate appropriations committee panel today moved to cut the anti-drug program's budget by more than 40%. "I have great heartburn that [the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy] hired Ogilvy & Mather," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D- N.D.. [continues 261 words]
Congressman Demands Documents; Other Scrutiny Expected WASHINGTON -- The surprise award of the White House drug office advertising contract to WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide -- the same agency that paid out $1.8 million to settle allegations that it overbilled the government -- is starting to draw congressional attention. On a day the full House Appropriations Committee approved legislation that would cut the government's overall spending on the anti-drug media campaign by $10 million to $170 million -- but require $150 million of that to be devoted to media buys -- the chairman of another House panel was writing the U.S. Navy asking for documents relating to the contract award. [continues 395 words]
Surprise Move Comes Despite Criminal Investigation WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide is keeping the White House anti-drug advertising account in a major surprise that could draw congressional criticism. The announcement was made by the Department of Defense; the U.S. Navy handled the technical details of administering the $150 million-a-year contract for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The Partnership for Drug Free America continues to do most of the creative for the campaign. [continues 203 words]
DANIEL FORBES, the journalist who revealed last January that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy cuts deals with TV networks to weave anti-drug messages, like product placement, into the story lines of TV shows, has a new ax to grind. This time it's Bob Taft, the Republican governor of Ohio, whom he accuses of plotting with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America to create a partisan political campaign against a drug-reform initiative in the state. In a rambling 43-page report posted on the Web site of the Institute for Policy Studies (ipc-dc.org), a left-wing think tank, Dan alleges that Taft, his wife, Hope Taft and the PDFA spent government money planning a campaign against a state initiative that would promote treatment instead of criminal sentences for simple drug possession. [continues 151 words]
An independent evaluation of the government's anti-drug advertising claims the paid-for effort is having an effect on visibility and may actually be producing attitudinal changes. The study, required by Congress, concedes the national campaign hasn't been running long enough to be able to determine whether it has affected the usage of illegal drugs. But it said there are hopeful signs. `MEETING ITS GOALS' ``The lessons learned through the evaluation . . . demonstrate that the campaign is meeting its goals,'' wrote Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in a letter to Congress. [continues 599 words]
