Saturday, Sep 6, 2008
In October of 2001, the researchers published their latest report assessing the cumulative effectiveness of all the new ads that had been issued by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign since its launch. The good news was that drug ads targeting parents often do encourage parents to talk to their kids about drugs. The bad news was that, thus far, the media campaign hadn't had a measurable impact on the kids at all.
The average kid is currently seeing an anti-drug ad 2.7 times a week, according to Robert Hornik, Annenberg School professor and the scientific director of the report. "We're seeing lots of reports of exposure," says Hornik. But "we haven't seen any real change over time, and no real association between exposure and outcomes." This means that the kids see the ads, but it doesn't seem to have an immediate impact on their drug-use behavior.
Hornik warns that the October data represents only 18 months' worth of research, and that there will be three more reports: "It could be that it will take more time for the kids to be affected," he says. Still, Hornik's report isn't the only one with bad news for anti-drug advertisers: In the American Journal of Public Health, an unrelated group of University of Pennsylvania researchers also discovered that many of the approaches used by anti-drug ads are not only ineffective, but often even encourage kids to do drugs.
"Although there is some evidence that mass media campaigns can be successful, most studies evaluating mass media campaigns have found little or no effect," the report posits. The researchers selected 30 anti-drug advertisements created by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America in the last four years and showed them to 3,608 students in grades 5 through 12. Afterwards, they interviewed the students about their responses to the ads. The researchers broke down the ads into categories -- ads that focused on the negative consequences of drug use (i.e., "This is your brain on drugs"), ads that focused on self-esteem issues (i.e., "The anti-drug"), ads that stressed "Just say no," as well as celebrity testimonials; and a category of ads about the dangers of heroin or methamphetamines. They then used the students' responses to measure the overall efficacy of each approach.
The results were decidedly mixed. Researchers discovered that 16 ads seemed to be effective in discouraging drug use; but another eight ads had no measurable effect whatsoever, and six ads actually spurred the viewer to either want to go try the drugs, or feel less confident about how to reject them. Unfortunately, the ads that had the greatest impact on the viewers were the ones that scared kids away from heroin and methamphetamines -- drugs which most teens are not likely to try anyway. The least effective ads were the ones that addressed marijuana and "drugs in general" -- ironically, the drugs that most teens are doing in the first place.
As the report concluded, "it may be much more difficult to change young people's beliefs, attitudes and intentions regarding use of marijuana than use of 'harder drugs' ... The PSAs appear to have the biggest impact on those who seem to need them the least; or, those who most need to be influenced by these PSAs (i.e., those who do not view these risky behaviors as harmful or dangerous) are least likely to view the PSAs as effective." In other words, the kids who are already prone to try drugs aren't going to be discouraged by what they see in the ads; and the kids who wouldn't try them anyway are going to be most affected.
The Partnership for a Drug-Free America acknowledges the results of the study, but has no plans to change its approach. In general, says Steve Dnistrian, the executive vice president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, it's difficult to find concrete evidence that advertising does or doesn't work; to draw a direct line of cause (advertisement) with effect (purchase, or, in the case of drugs, lack thereof).
"There is no perfect way to measure advertising effectiveness," he says. "These [research results] are numbers we would take on any day of the week; in our mind, this is a very, very strong case to be made for the effectiveness of these ads. It also points to the issue that we've known for a long time -- no single ad will do the trick, which is why you need multiple ads and multiple strategies."
Dnistrian does have a point: Critical as many people are of many anti-drug campaigns, it's difficult to advocate that they be completely removed from the airwaves. Even if the ads aren't individually effective, they keep the issue of drugs in the public dialogue. And during those serendipitous times when anti-drug ads dovetail with national alarm over a topic -- the influence of "Big Tobacco," or the sudden widespread use of crack -- it is likely that they influence a broad, if brief, disgust with all drugs.
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