Wireless AMBER Alerts Campaign Gets Results

Wireless AMBER Alerts campaign launch is the first of its kind to raise awareness of the program and engage wireless subscribers in finding missing children.

Statistics show that when a child is abducted, the first three hours are the most critical to recovery efforts. The AMBER (“America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response”) Alert program was created in 1997 as an early warning system to find abducted children. Since then, AMBER Alerts have helped save more than 260 children. The Wireless AMBER Alerts™ initiative was launched last year as a way to extend the Alerts to the entire wireless industry, which includes nearly 200 million subscribers.

The Ad Council recently joined with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC), The Wireless Foundation and the U.S. Department of Justice, to launch a national PSA campaign aimed at raising awareness of Wireless AMBER Alerts. The PSAs urge all wireless subscribers to register for text message alerts and aid in the search for abducted children. The national, multimedia campaign debuted on National Missing Children’s Day (May 25).

Created pro bono by Merkley + Partners, the new ads are designed to educate the public about Wireless AMBER Alerts and, in turn, increase the number of people who can respond when a child is abducted. All wireless subscribers who are capable of receiving text messages and whose wireless carrier participates in the Wireless AMBER Alerts initiative may opt in to receive free AMBER Alerts by registering at www.wirelessamberalerts.org or their wireless carriers’ websites. Subscribers may designate up to five geographic areas for which they would like to receive the Alerts.

The campaign is already off to a great start! The successful launch included news features about the campaign in USA Today’s Life section and more than 200 radio and TV segments (including CNN Radio and NBC). Press coverage in the first week delivered the campaign messages to more than 12 million people, resulting in significant exposure and a 401% increase in new subscriptions via the campaign’s website during the first 48 hours!

The new radio, newspaper, outdoor and Internet PSAs ask parents/guardians and all wireless subscribers to visit www.wirelessamberalerts.org to sign up for Wireless AMBER Alerts. The ads were distributed to media outlets nationwide in May. With your support, we can encourage all wireless subscribers to sign up and potentially help save the life of a child in their community.

2005 Record-Breaking Year in Donated Media

Ad Council campaigns received an estimated $1.8 billion in donated advertising time and space during 2005. This support marks the eighth straight year that Ad Council campaigns received more than $1 billion in donated time and space.

Radio remained the top supporter, donating an estimated $1 billion in airtime last year, a 24% increase from 2004. Support from Spanish radio increased 327% as a result of many more Spanish radio PSAs produced for Ad Council campaigns and an increased amount of Spanish language formatted stations. Out of home support increased by 18%, donating an estimated $114 million in advertising space last year. This was in part a result of an industry roadblock for the Buzzed Driving campaign, coordinated in partnership with the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA).

Broadcast and Cable TV remained the second largest supporter of Ad Council PSAs with donations valued at approximately $338 million in airtime. In particular, the Ad Council appreciates the National Association of Broadcasters’ highlighted support for the Childhood Obesity campaign and the TVB’s “Buzzed Driving Is Drunk Driving” Project Roadblock.

Newspaper support increased by 21% with an estimated $30 million in advertising space including upfront donated media commitments from 3 of the top 5 newspaper groups. Additional noteworthy increases include Interactive media by 8%.

The Ad Council would like to thank the media industry leaders like you who continue to support our critical messages. Together, we improve and even save the lives of Americans throughout the nation, one person and community at a time.

VST MEDIA Pumps Up Ad Council PSAs

VST Media’s Stephen Keller selects “Dance” as the first PSA to air on his gas station network.

VST Media’s broadcast network serves up more than NBC news, weather, and sports to driving consumers at Southern California gas stations. Now the network will also include Ad Council PSAs.

“Giving something back to the community is an important part of the VST mission,” explains Stephen Keller, Vice President Marketing & Strategic Planning (pictured right) for the Los Angeles-based VST Media, Inc. “That’s why the Ad Council’s :15 PSAs are perfect for our out of home broadcast locations.

“For the month of June, we chose the very engaging Fatherhood spot as our first PSA,” notes Keller. “After Father’s Day we’ll move to the Drunk Driving Prevention and Booster Seat messages, which speak directly to our core audience, the driving public.”

Currently, VST Media has multiple screens installed at 17 Southern California gas stations, with plans to have them installed at 300 stations statewide by the end of 2006 and a national rollout in early 2007.

Featuring 17-inch daylight-viewable LCD screens and full-stereo sound, the VST Media Network is designed to engage and entertain motorists while they are fueling their vehicles. Activated when the customer picks up the gas nozzle, the TV screens provide a wide range of programming such as news, movie trailers, trivia, sports and PSAs. Current advertisers include State Farm and Tropicana, among others. Donated value for the Ad Council’s :15 PSA for a four-week run at the 17 stations is $6,800.

Ad Council: Coming Soon To A Neighborhood Near You!

As has been reported in previous editions of this newsletter, the Ad Council is working to provide local media outlets with the materials and guidance needed to get the most out of the generous support of our campaigns. Although our campaigns are national in scope, their true impact is felt locally in communities throughout the nation. As such, local market development has been a focus of the Ad Council’s media outreach efforts during the past year, and great progress has been made. With regional managing directors strategically located in ten markets around the country, we are able to better understand local market needs.

Together these regional representatives cover the top 100 markets, or 86% of the total U.S. population. They focus on their five markets in the top 50 for 68% U.S. coverage and concentrate on their home market, the top 10 DMAs, representing 25% of the U.S. population. They are successfully getting, tracking and rewarding broader local support, and recovering and integrating more critical marketplace feedback than ever—on our campaigns, preferred spot lengths, page sizes, billboard layouts, etc.

In each of these markets, leadership committees are being developed to strengthen local relationships and to increase the impact of our campaigns on the local level. Mirroring our national board with top representatives from agencies, clients and media companies, the following market leadership committees have been established:

Chicago: Renetta McCann (Starcom), Bill Lamar (McDonald’s), Emily Barr (WLS-TV)

Detroit: Tony Hopp (Campbell-Ewald), Andy Jung (Kellogg’s), George Murphy (Daimler Chrysler) and Grace Gilchrist (WXYZ-TV)

San Francisco: Karen Francis (Hal Riney), Greg Coleman (Yahoo), Sheryl Sandberg (Google), Gary Elliott (H-P), Ron Longinotti (KPIXTV/ CBS) and Ed Krampf (Clear Channel Radio)

Next up are the formation of local market leadership committees in Los Angeles, Dallas and New York. These committees are in development, and will be reported on in later issues.

New PSAs are currently available to you. To order these PSAs, visit psacentral.adcouncil.org or call 1-800-933-PSAS.

Award-Winning Foster Care Adoption Campaign Launches New PSAs In an effort to encourage the adoption of teens currently in the foster care system, the Ad Council in its continuing partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the Adoption Exchange Association and the Collaboration to AdoptUsKids, has launched new PSAs developed to help prospective parents realize that teens don’t need perfect families, but they do need permanent, loving homes. Created pro bono by ad agency kirshenbaum bond & partners, the new television, radio, print and Internet PSAs take a look at some everyday situations that parents and teens encounter, reinforcing the notion that these are the moments that really count. All of the PSAs end with the tagline, “You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent. There are thousands of teens in foster care who would love to put up with you.” The new PSAs are an extension of the previously successful general market campaign, launched in 2004, which focused on the adoption of children ages 8 and older, and the Spanish-language campaign, launched in 2005, designed to encourage members of the Hispanic community to consider adoption of children from foster care. In the first 18 months following the launch of the advertising industry’s Addy and Effie award-winning general market campaign, calls to the tollfree number increased by 236%. Additionally, more than 2,400 families have started the adoption process, and more than 8 million people have visited www.adoptuskids.org for information on adoption. Clearly, we are moving the needle on this critical issue! The new PSAs direct audiences to visit www.adoptuskids.org or call 1-888-200- 4005 for more information on adoption from foster care.

Father Knows Best More than 79% of Americans feel that “the most significant family or social problem facing America is the physical absence of the father from the home.” According to the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), research shows that the lack of a father in the home correlates closely with crime, educational and emotional problems, teenage pregnancy, and drug and alcohol abuse. For the past 11 years, the Ad Council has worked with NFI and volunteer ad agency Campbell-Ewald to create PSAs to communicate to fathers that their presence is essential to their children’s well-being and to provide all fathers with the information they need to become better dads. In a continuing effort to show dads the critical role they play in their children’s lives, the Ad Council and NFI launched new radio and print PSAs in time for Father’s Day. The new PSAs emphasize to fathers that “the smallest moments can have the biggest impact on a child’s life.” The PSAs conclude with the tagline, “Have you been a dad today?” and direct fathers to visit www.fatherhood.org or call 1-800-790-DADS to learn how to become better dads. Since its initial launch in 1997, the Father Involvement campaign has received more than $430 million in donated media across television, radio, out-of-home, Internet and print. Thank you for continuing to support this critically important issue.

Successful “Bloodsaves” Campaign Continues with Launch of New Superhero, “The Red Defender” To build on the success of the “Bloodsaves” campaign and continue our efforts to foster a new generation of lifelong blood donors, the Ad Council, along with AABB, America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross, launched a new series of PSAs in July to coincide with summer—a time when blood shortages are prevalent. The new ads, developed to further the reach and impact of the existing campaign, utilize a new creative approach featuring an animated superhero… “The Red Defender,” created by ad agency Euro RSCG. First launched in the fall of 2004, “Bloodsaves” is a national multimedia campaign designed to reach 17-24 year-olds. The new fun and engaging PSAs have a hip comic book feel and showcase The Red Defender’s adventures and the challenges he faces as he tries to save the world from evil. These efforts are then contrasted with the notion that “saving the world isn’t easy, but saving a life is.” We were extremely fortunate to have animator JJ Sedelmeier and his production company lend their creative talents to this effort. JJ and his colleagues are well known for their work on (Saturday Night Live’s) “TV Funhouse” and for their cutting-edge commercial animation. Thanks to your generous support—$50 million in donated advertising time and space to date—the “Bloodsaves” campaign has reached countless young adults nationwide; Bloodsaves.com, our comprehensive campaign website, has received more than one million unique visitors; and most importantly, Ad Council tracking results show that awareness levels have increased significantly, and that those who saw at least one of the ads were more likely to have donated blood. Thanks to all of you for playing such a important role in furthering the reach of the “Bloodsaves” PSAs within your communities. Your support has certainly made a difference and, with your continued involvement, this year we will motivate even more young adults to save a life!