ARE ANTI-DRUG ADS A BIG WASTE?

The Government Has Yet to Prove That Its $200 Million-A-Year Media Campaign
Is Effective, Leading to All Sorts of Carping

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Oct. 4 chose
a new advertising agency, Foote Cone & Belding, to lead its $200
million-per-year anti-drug advertising effort aimed at parents and
children. The previous agency, Ogilvy & Mather, was accused of
overbilling the government, but that's hardly the only controversy
dogging the government's six-year-old anti-drug ad effort.

The ONDCP, headed by federal drug czar John Walters, spends its ad
budget buying time, space, and public-relation services for anti-drug
ads and promotions warning youngsters about the ills of pot, ecstasy,
glue-sniffing, and other such substances. The agency also urges
parents to monitor kids for drug use. For each ad paid the ONDCP buys
with tax dollars, media companies contribute a matching ad.

It sounds like a public-service "slam dunk" in current Beltway-speak,
but the General Accounting Office and Congress are studying whether
any link can be made between the ads and declining drug use. So far,
the only study that tried to assess this found no connection and
concluded that the campaign may actually backfire: The more ads some
kids see, the more likely they are to try pot.

Declining Use.

Now that the review for a new ad agency is over, the ONDCP plans to look for
a new research firm to study and track parents and children who are exposed
to the ads. In the case of parents, researchers will look for evidence that
those who see the ads are more likely to have "the talk" with their children
about the dangers of taking drugs.

That research for the past five years has been led by the Annenberg
School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Friction
has arisen between the ONDCP and the researchers, however, since the
Annenberg School hasn't been able to find a link between seeing the
ads and declining drug use -- which the White House is seeking to
justify re-funding the effort.

Walters is convinced, based on other indicators, that it's a worthy
campaign. "Fewer teens are using drugs because of the deliberate and
serious messages they have received about the dangers of drugs from
their parents, leaders, and prevention efforts like our National Youth
Anti-Drug Media Campaign," he says, pointing to a Health & Human
Services Dept. survey showing an overall 11% decline in drug use by
8th, 10th, and 12th graders in 2002-03.

"Rube Goldberg" Study?

But Walters' own special assistant, David Murray, opens the door for more
doubt. "We are getting great benefits, but we aren't sure we have anything
to do with it," says Murray. Tobacco and alcohol consumption have fallen
among teens, too, but the ONDCP campaign doesn't address smoking or alcohol.

Murray adds, however, that teasing out the media campaign's
contribution to national drug-use trends is "extraordinarily
tough...and no one is held to that standard in any other government
program." Murray termed the previous five-year tracking study directed
by the Annenberg School as "Rube Goldberg."

Robert C. Hornik, who directed the study for the school until last
January, contends it "was the results [the government] didn't like,"
not the study or its methodology. He points out that the ONDCP
approved Annenberg's methodology. Furthermore, he notes, the agency
didn't dispute the study's finding that parents exposed to the ads
were more likely to talk to their kids about drug use and more closely
monitor their behavior. The reason? "That finding was what they were
looking for," says Hornik.

Political Undertones.

The ONDCP got into anti-drug marketing after private media companies cut
back on the number of free public-service ads they do. The ONDCP lobbied for
funds to go commercial in 1997 after then-crug czar Barry McCaffrey became
incensed over a medical-marijuana ballot initiative that passed in
California.

However, the campaign's often-political undertones have repeatedly
stoked controversy. McCaffrey, for instance, got into trouble for
allowing, without telling Congress, TV stations to provide their
advertising match with anti-drug story lines in shows such as ER
instead of actual ads. The public wasn't informed that the stories
were indirectly influenced by a financial commitment from the White
House, and legislators who backed the program were incensed.

The campaign was further politicized in 2002 when the ONDCP stated its
intent to run $96 million in ads during and just after the midterm
election. The ads' main focus is anti-marijuana messages aimed at
state ballot initiatives for drug-policy reform. Such direct
intervention in state politics drew fire from both Democrats and
Republicans.

Targeting Candidates.

Despite the ontroversy, Walters shows little sign of backing down. He has
made it clear in speeches that he plans to continue using the power of his
office to defeat state drug-policy reform initiatives. And last year, the
bill to reauthorize $1 billion in public money as part of the $2 billion
five-year campaign was derailed in the Senate after the GOP leadership
slipped vague language into the bill that could have allowed the ONDCP to
target specific political candidates not in sync with White House drug
policy.

Politics aside, Bob Deniston, deputy director of the ONDCP campaign,
says he believes a new tracking study will validate the ads and a
change in creative strategy that began in 2002, which the new ad
agency is expected to support. The latest ads aimed at youngsters,
created by several ad agencies under the direction of the Partnership
for a Drug-Free America, shift from depicting damage self-inflicted by
marijuana and chemical inhalants (i.e. a brain-damaged teenager being
fed baby food by his mother) to depicting accountability and
consequence.

One ad shows stoned teenagers running down a kid on a bike. "Young
kids think they are invulnerable [to hurting themselves]...so we are
targeting their view of the world," says Deniston. The big questions
now: Will the White House buy into that notion? And how many people
will believe the new studies when they come out?