Media Tracking Results: 12 Weeks Into the Media Campaign

Preliminary analysis of media tracking data on trends in drug prevention advertising indicated the following:

• A higher level of anti-drug activity was present in sites that received paid media advertisements through the Media Campaign (target sites) than in the comparison sites.
• The frequency of drug prevention TV advertising increased dramatically from the October-December1997 baseline period to the January-March1998 intervention period in the target sites. In the target sites, an average increase of 123percent in the number of PDFA television ads alone was noted after the Media Campaign was implemented. This increase is believed to be due to the PDFA ads for the paid campaign and those ads placed as a result of the campaign-related pro bono matching.
• Prior to the Media Campaign, target and comparison sites revealed little difference in audience exposure to drug prevention ads, as measured through gross rating point (GRP) (i.e., exposure). GRPs, which represent the percentage of the target audience exposed to the ads, showed that audience exposure increased at a rate of 3.7 in target sites during the early implementation period. This means there were 3.7 times more target site viewers exposed to anti-drug messages during the implementation period than during the pre-Campaign period. Meanwhile, comparison sites experienced an increase at a rate of only 1.8.