A NEW ECSTASY CAMPAIGN

THE Partnership for a Drug-Free America will introduce today an ad
campaign focusing on the drug Ecstasy and backed by the largest
donation of media time it has received.

The Comcast Corporation - the cable giant, has agreed to
donate time valued at $51 million over three years.
The campaign and the Comcast deal, to be detailed at the
National Press Club in Washington, are efforts to answer two big
challenges the partnership says it faces: having parents address the
dangers of Ecstasy with their children and putting the most effective
messages in front of the right audiences.

Comcast's sprawling reach - it has 21 million customers - will allow
the partnership to reach parents and teenagers by channel and city.

The partnership's latest research, also to be released today, shows
that parents have heard of Ecstasy but rarely talk to their children
about it, far less than they discuss other drugs, said Stephen J.
Pasierb, president and chief executive.

"Parents don't understand that you've got to keep pace with the drug
issue," Mr. Pasierb said. "You've got to know that the menu is
changing." The research also shows that parents who see antidrug ads
nearly every day are more likely to talk with their children about
drugs.

But as with most efforts to affect attitudes and behavior, advocates
and industry executives viewed the new ads with a mixture of hope and
caution.

"Absolutely, parents should talk to their kids about drugs," said
Melissa Martin, a volunteer at the national office of DanceSafe in New
York, which does not condone or condemn drug use, instead emphasizing
education and harm reduction for those who use drugs. "The majority of
people who see these public service announcements from my experience
consider them laughable and don't take them seriously at all."

Richard Earle, a social marketing consultant and former ad industry
executive, said that while some anti-drug advertising had been very
effective, other campaigns have tripped up trying to strike the right
tone.

"The thing about social marketing is that there are so many nuances
that can tip it either to the good side or toward being ineffective,"
Mr. Earle said.

The new Ecstasy campaign uses satire and direct talk to try to escape
the pitfalls of some past drug ads.

One commercial parodies direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs
to play up the downsides of Ecstasy. It shows teenagers running
happily through bucolic fields as the word is superimposed on the
screen like a slick corporate logo for a legal product. A teenage girl
tells the camera, "Ecstasy changed my life!"

Following the pattern of direct-to-consumer ads, a voiceover begins to
warn, "Ecstasy is not for everyone," but inverts the usual model by
adding, "In fact, it's not for anyone."

"Side effects," the voiceover continues as the teenagers start looking
grim and the landscape darkens, "may include depression, severe
anxiety, hypertension, heat strokes, seizures, heart attacks, liver
damage, kidney or cardiovascular system failure, worried parents, loss
of friends, isolation, emptiness."

The commercial was created by Gotham in New York, part of the
Interpublic Group of Companies.

"The pills have these branded logos on them, the name Ecstasy itself
is a brand, so we thought it was only right to use advertising and
marketing techniques against this drug," said Dan Sheehan, group
creative director at Gotham.

John Roberts, group account director, said the agency tried to improve
upon some earlier antidrug ads by making this one stylistically
striking. "We see a lot of the antidrug advertising and a lot of it is
not always that memorable," he said. "If you're serious about reaching
younger people, you really have to do something that isn't just wallpaper."

Two other spots, created by McKee Wallwork Henderson in Albuquerque,
are starker, each showing just one actor speaking to the camera. The
first holds steady on a woman who asks parents if their children are
watching television with them. If so, she says, they should talk to
their children about Ecstasy -- immediately. She waits silently before
demanding whether parents have begun the conversation yet.

The woman's long pause is intended to produce some unease, said Steve
McKee, president at McKee Wallwork. "When she sits back in her chair
for a few seconds, it feels like 30 minutes," he said. "There's simply
no way they can avoid having the conversation."

The second commercial resembles a public service announcement aimed
strictly at teenagers but doubles as a warning to parents. A young
narrator tells teenagers that they might fool their parents with
techniques like hiding Ecstasy pills in vitamin bottles, but the drug
remains dangerous.

"Ecstasy is something kids can hide," Mr. McKee said. By putting a
clean-cut teenager on the screen and disclosing some of the ways
teenagers conceal their Ecstasy use, the ad alerts parents who may not
have considered their own "good kids" at risk, he said.

The campaign, with print and outdoor components, also directs people
to askyourkidsaboutecstasy.com, a Web site that leads visitors to the
Ecstasy Alert section of the partnership site.

The Comcast commitment means that the television campaign will receive
considerable exposure, about 70 showings weekly in each of its many
markets. After its acquisition of AT&T Broadband last November,
Comcast operates in 17 of the country's 20 largest metropolitan areas.

The Comcast commitment to the partnership did not impress some
longtime critics of the company's power. Jeff Chester, executive
director at the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington, an
advocacy group, called it a bid to build political good will in the
many markets Comcast entered as a result of its AT&T
acquisition.

"This is part of a political strategy to help buy friends and
influence people," Mr. Chester said.

Stephen B. Burke, executive vice president at Comcast and president at
Comcast Cable, described the company's motivation very differently. He
said that building relationships in its new markets was one reason the
commitment made sense.

"Now that the foundation is set, we can start to work at building our
brand and help the communities that we serve," Mr. Burke said. "It's a
wonderful combination of being the right thing for the business and
also the right thing to do."

While good corporate citizenship can enhance the company brand, the
deal works well for Comcast for other reasons as well, said Stephen M.
Adler, chief executive at JAMI Charity Brands in New York, which helps
match nonprofit groups with corporate benefactors.

"One of the benefits to a media company like Comcast," Mr. Adler said,
"is that they're able to utilize either some of their existing media
or unused media for a good cause."