Buzzed Driving PSAs Spark Immediate Results

Created by Mullen, the PSAs are designed to inspire dialogue about and recognition of the dangers of “buzzed” driving and discourage people from driving impaired.

Within one week of the launch of the Buzzed Driving campaign, the critical message “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving” reached more than 97% of the country and one in five people who viewed the PSAs had taken action to prevent someone from driving “buzzed.” This immediate and extraordinary response to the campaign testifies to the power of public service advertising (and the media’s support of our PSAs) to inspire social change!

As reported in the January/February PSAB, the Ad Council joined with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) to debut the new Drunk Driving Prevention campaign with a TV roadblock during the 2005 holiday week (Christmas through New Year’s). TVB encouraged all local broadcast stations to donate airtime to the new PSAs during that week, a time when drunk driving fatalities are at their highest.

An extension of the memorable “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” campaign, the new PSAs aim to reach the driver who drinks and drives, but does not consider himself a hazard on the road or a drunk driver because he’s just “buzzed.”

As a result of the roadblock, media support of the PSAs during that first week exceeded $6 million with 638 stations airing more than 21,000 spots. News coverage extended the campaign’s reach to an additional 49 million people.

Thanks to your incredible contribution, these critical messages reached their intended target, potentially saving countless lives. An Ad Council tracking survey found that 18% of the people who saw the PSAs that week acted to stop an impaired person from driving under the influence. The research also showed that nearly 25% of men ages 21–35, the campaign’s target, had seen or heard about the campaign.

“This collaboration with the TVB and TV stations throughout the country yielded an immediate and unprecedented response from the public,” said Peggy Conlon, President & CEO of the Ad Council. “With your continued support of these critical messages, we can continue to change the social norm and remind the public that ‘buzzed driving is drunk driving.’

Coast to Coast: Taking the Ad Council Local

As many PSA inventory decisions are made at the local level and PSA directors use their valuable inventory to respond to the unique needs of their local audience, the need to expand the Ad Council’s local engagement is clear. As such, we are committed to demonstrating the local relevance of our campaigns, fostering stronger relationships with community leaders and being seen as a credible partner in responding to issues of national importance that have local impact.

To date, we have placed regional managing directors in 8 of the top 10 markets, and key local market leadership committees have been established in three of those markets. Our regional managing directors are calling on local media outlets in all top 100 markets to stimulate support for our critical messages, networking with the local advertising industry, and engaging local representatives from our national campaign sponsors to demonstrate the local relevance of our campaigns to local media executives, and identifying potential local donors. We are confident that these efforts will help to extend support of our critical messages in communities throughout the country.

WHBF and Tribune Broadcasting Win Silver Bell

The Ad Council recently honored two local broadcast TV outlets with its prestigious Silver Bell. The recipients for individual station and broadcast group awards respectively were WHBF-TV of Davenport, Iowa, and Tribune Broadcasting.

WHBF-TV of Davenport, Iowa, was honored for its outstanding support of “Project Roadblock,” local broadcast television’s partnership with the Ad Council and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to reduce drunk driving during the holiday season (see story on page 1). WHBF-TV brought the message to its community through multiple platforms, including significant PSA placements, website spotlights and newscasts that provided an explanation of the program, information, interviews and useful holiday safe-driving tips.

Tribune Broadcasting received the broadcast group award for outstanding overall support for Ad Council initiatives. Last year, Tribune stations donated 17,000 placements for numerous PSAs, including Father Involvement, Disease Prevention and Obesity Prevention. The company’s support extended to a full range of engagement with Ad Council materials and resources, extending their local impact through public affairs programming, news stories and integrated marketing.

The Bells were presented by John Dooner, Ad Council Chairman and CEO of the McCann Worldgroup, and Robin Mayer, Chief, Office of Consumer Information, NHTSA, on April 20 at the 2006 TVB Marketing Conference in New York City.

Do You Blog?

As you may know, Peggy Conlon has begun her own blog, “Ad Libbing: Inside PSAs.” The recently launched blog will provide readers with an insider’s perspective on PSAs, why the Ad Council is committed to public service advertising and how public service campaigns inspire individuals and communities to make a measurable difference in society.

Peggy will post several times a month to provide commentary on the Ad Council’s current campaigns, public service initiatives and our progress on moving the needle. “Ad Libbing: Inside PSAs” will help to extend the reach of our messages and encourage dialogue on the issues we address.

We are delighted to be able to share our progress on fulfilling the Ad Council’s mission. Please visit www.adlibbing.org and sign up for an RSS feed in order to receive each blog as it is posted.

Thanks for Your Continuing Commitment

The success of our PSA campaigns rests on their being seen and heard by the American people. We are therefore profoundly grateful to the media industry for continuing to support our work with commitments of donated advertising time and space. As of this writing approximately 80 upfront media commitments totaling $540 million have been secured for CY2006. This commitment is a testament to the fact that you continue to believe in the power of public service advertising to make a difference.

To date, half of the top 50 media companies have made generous upfront donated media commitments to support Ad Council PSAs. This includes all of the top cable MSOs, the top outdoor companies and 9 of the top 10 directory companies. It further includes commitments from half of the top broadcast TV station groups, 10 of the top 12 radio station groups, the top 4 online search/portal sites, 7 of the top 10 magazine companies and 3 of the top 5 newspaper groups. In addition, we have secured generous and significant industry roadblock support from OAAA (Outdoor Advertising Association of America), TVB (Television Bureau of Advertising), NAB (National Association of Broadcasters), NAA (Newspaper Association of America), MPA (Magazine Publishers of America) and ABM (American Business Media).

Thank you for your continued belief in the power of PSAs. Together, we are generating great change.

Alloy/360 Youth A&E Network ABC Radio Group ABC Radio Networks, Inc. ABC Television Network Adlink Cable Advertising, LLC Accent Health Ambient Media American Express Publishing AmericanGreetings.com American Urban Radio Networks AOL Media Networks Association of Directory Publishers Azteca America Beasley Broadcasting Group Belo Corporation Bloomberg Television Bonneville International Corp. Bright House Networks Buckley Broadcasting Corp. Cable One, Inc. Cablevision & Rainbow Media Holdings Captivate Networks Charter Communications, Inc. Citadel Broadcasting Corp. Clear Channel Communications, Inc. College Sports Television Comcast Networks Comcast Spotlight Conde Nast Publications, Inc. Cox Communications Cox Enterprises, Inc.

Discovery Communications, Inc. Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Emmis Communications Corp. Entercom Communications Corp. Entravision Communications Corp. ESPN, Inc. Fairway Outdoor Advertising, Inc. Fastclick, Inc. Google Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc. Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc. here! Networks Impressionaire Infotouch Insight Communications Company Insite Advertising, Inc. iVillage iVillage Parenting Network JCDecaux North America Kidzworld Lamar Outdoor Advertising Lime LIN Television Corporation MásMúsica TeVe Media General, Inc. Mediacom Communications Corp. Meredith Corporation MSN.com National Basketball Association New Age Media Concepts The Newborn Channel Nextmedia Group, Inc.

The New York Times Company New York Times Digital News Corporation Newsweek, Inc. North American Broadcasting, Inc. OAAA Pappas Telecasting Companies PARADE Publications, Inc. PRIMEDIA, Inc. Radio One, Inc. Raycom Media ReceptaSign, Inc. The Reader’s Digest Assoc., Inc. Screenplay, Inc. Scripps Cable Networks Si TV Superstation WGN Susquehanna Radio Corp. Targeted Media Partners Time Warner Inc. Transcore Media Tribune Company Univision Communications, Inc. USNews.com Verizon Westwood One Radio Networks Yahoo! YES Network Young Broadcasting Zoom Media

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

Fighting Global Warming The nation’s most renowned climate scientists agree that heat-trapping global warming pollution is happening, we are causing it and we have time to avoid the most dangerous consequences, which could happen in our children’s lifetimes. However, by practicing simple measures of conservation and becoming energyconscious, families can reduce their global warming pollution by over 35,000 pounds per year. In an effort to combat global warming, the Ad Council, in partnership with Environmental Defense, launched a national PSA campaign designed to motivate Americans to participate in activities that will help reduce greenhouse gas pollution. This new multi-media campaign, created pro bono by Ogilvy & Mather, New York, includes compelling new television, radio and Internet PSAs. The PSAs convey the urgency that global warming is happening but there are individual actions that all Americans can take to help slow its effects. All of the PSAs direct the audience to visit www.fightglobalwarming.org, a new website that features interactive tools where people can calculate their personal contribution to the climate change problem, and a series of simple energy-saving tips such as replacing light bulbs with energyefficient ones that will last for years.

Promoting Childhood Literacy According to the National Institute for Literacy, success in school—and life—starts with literacy. A U.S. Department of Education study found that from 1983 to 1999, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a “basic” level, and research shows that this trend begins much earlier in life. In an effort to promote childhood literacy, the Ad Council joined with the Library of Congress and Buena Vista Home Entertainment to launch a campaign in April that is designed to encourage children and adults to become engaged in reading and all other forms of literacy. The new multi-media campaign features scenes and characters from the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which resonated with audiences worldwide. The new PSAs, which aim to reach children in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades and their parents, focus on engaging children in all forms of literacy, whether it is reading a book or magazine, studying history, visiting a museum or simply using their imaginations. First launched in 2000, previous advertising for the campaign encouraged children and adults to learn about U.S. history. The focus has now changed to childhood literacy. All of the PSAs direct children and parents to visit the Library of Congress’ website, www.loc.gov, for discovery, learning and family fun. The website provides children and families with a multi-media, interactive learning experience through which children can enhance their literacy.