The New York TImes shows the new approach to public service ads targeted at kids. Shaila K. Dewan writes (excerpt):
The campaign is different from those that have gone before it. It does not try to shame the viewer into action. There are no scare tactics that end in the coffins or graves. This is not your brain on drugs. Nor does it emphasize a positive message – snowboarding as the anti-drug, say – that might seem out of reach to its target audience.
Like its precursors in the squeamish 1950’s, the wised-up 1970’s, the fearful “Just Say No” and let’s-hear-nothing-else-about-it 1980’s, the “Face the Issue” campaign reflects its time. Brutally frank and uncomfortably intimate, it delves into a world in which young people grow up faster, are more sophisticated and, statistics show, are increasingly diagnosed as troubled. Perhaps more important, rather than appeal to parents, it asks young people to take action themselves. Each message ends with the words: “Your choice.”
The 30-second spots, made at cost with the stars donating their time, have been shown on MTV, the WB and other networks. An important component is the corresponding Web site, www.facetheissue.com, a sort of online group therapy session whose users post messages about their problems. The day after the campaign began in late October, the site got 300,000 hits. As of last week, two million people had visited.
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In the 1990’s, research showed that parents are far more effective messengers. New slogans urged parents to talk to their children about drugs and sex.
But an obstacle for teens with eating disorders or drug problems, several experts said, is their parents’ denial. A child may not have anorexia but still have serious food-related problems, said Susan Smalley, a psychiatry professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who studies such disorders. “The site is tapping into that group of children and adolescents that aren’t being identified,” she said.
Peggy Conlon, the president of the Ad Council, said that one way to change behavior is to change what is considered normal. She points to the Legacy Foundation’s antismoking ads, showing children ambushing tobacco executives with tough questions. “They’re making kids appear smart if they resist smoking,” she said.
“Face the Issue” grapples with another issue: what to do when low self-confidence and eating disorders seem to be the norm.
“There is no magic wand, ‘Oh, do this and it’s all going to be fine,’ ” said Ms. Semel. “The whole point was not to make the issues so negative. To take the stigma away from it and just make it like anything else in life, something you should deal with.”