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PDFA Moves Anti-Drug Campaign Online
October
19, 2007
The
Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) is increasing its use of the
Internet to disseminate anti-drug messages to kids and parents while
trimming its traditional advertising on broadcast television, the New
York Times reported Sept. 28.
The
PDFA's Time to Talk initiative, for example
uses a website -- not TV ads -- to encourage parents to talk to their
kids about alcohol and other drugs. The project includes a partnership
with Yahoo to facilitate communication with and among the target
audience.
Digital
media now represents 10 percent of PDFA advertising, which could rise to
31 percent by 2010. The group also is looking into distributing ads via cellphones and video games. "The risk is not being
useful to this generation of kids and parents,'' said PDFA president and
CEO Steve Pasierb. "Even
if we're on the 6 o'clock news with the greatest of
spots, we've missed the target."
Pasierb said growing traffic on PDFA's
own website helped convince the group to make the shift. "Parents
need resources that you just can't give them in 30 seconds," said
advertising executive Sydney Hunsdale, whose
agency, Avenue A/Razorfish, does pro-bono work
for PDFA. "And because a lot of parents don't want to admit to
anyone their child is having trouble with drugs, the more private nature
of the digital media makes a huge difference."
"Our spend[ing] is down, but
our effective reach is up," Pasierb said.
"I would rather be able to reach 100,000 parents well, the way they
want to be reached, than reach 10 million with a generic message."
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