The "Check Yourself" campaign is designed to lead 15- to 18-year-old recreational drug and alcohol users to reconsider their relationships with their substances of choice and ultimately curtail their use.
"Based on research we estimate about 30 percent of teens ages 15 to 18 have begun using drugs and alcohol 'recreationally,'" said Sean Clarkin, executive vice president and director of strategy for PDFA. "For many of these kids, traditional prevention messages may not be terribly relevant. 'Check Yourself' hopes to speak with these kids like a trusted friend or older sibling, encouraging them to take an honest look at their substance use and seek help if they need it."
"Check Yourself" is based on extensive research with teens and the input of experts in the public health, treatment and youth counseling field, and Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH, New York) created the first wave of ads for the campaign after helping to conceptualize the effort.
Each of the 30-second TV spots depicts moments in which drug use uncomfortably intrudes into the lives of "recreational" teen users. In one spot, a girl tries to cover up a sudden nosebleed in the middle of a class at school; in another a boy accidentally drops his packet of drugs on a fast-food restaurant counter; in a third two shaken girls are seen discussing the results of one’s pregnancy test.
Each spot ends with an on-screen question asking, "Still in control?" before directing viewers to checkyourself.com, a new Web site created specifically for this campaign. According to Kevin McKeon, executive creative director at BBH, the messages are meant to tap into the private doubts research shows many experimenting teens have about their ability to manage their relationship with drugs and alcohol over time.
"It was important to us that there be no authoritarian voice anywhere in these ads," McKeon said. "Kids are too smart, and too skeptical, for that. Instead, we wanted to give them the tools to think for themselves, and make their own decisions. This work does that brilliantly, I think."
The web site created by Titan Digital (Baltimore), checkyourself.com, includes links to treatment resources, the opportunity to interact with other teens who have experienced their own "moments of truth," and a series of quizzes kids can take to assess the depth of their drug or alcohol problem.
Some of the quizzes are designed to let kids get answers right away, while others encourage visitors to fill out a user profile about their drug and alcohol use and have it e-mailed to them for review in one, two or three months.
"Kids always say there are lines they won’t cross," Clarkin said. "This is a chance for them to see just how they may be redrawing those lines."
Beyond the TV messages and the Web site, the campaign also includes live radio scripts and a “guerilla marketing” component aimed at embedding the campaign into at-risk teen culture. The traditional public service messages are being distributed nationally to cities and states nationwide for use in pro bono media through the Partnership’s State/City Alliance Program. All actors in the ads appear pro bono through the generosity of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
Source: Partnership for a Drug-Free America News Release
