Survey suggests ads are having effect on kids, parents
By ED KEMMICK Of The Gazette Staff
The second round of methamphetamine-prevention advertising in Montana -- a $6.5 million campaign involving television, newspapers, radio, billboards and movie screens -- launches today.
Thomas Siebel, founder of the Montana Meth Project, outlined the campaign and talked about results of the first round of advertising during an event in Helena on Wednesday that was broadcast live to gatherings in Billings and other major cities in Montana.
Siebel, a software billionaire and part-time Montana resident who owns two ranches in the state, will be bankrolling the second wave of advertising, as he did with the first round, but said he hopes the people of Montana take over funding the project by 2007. He also said the project won't be effective if it is short-term.
"It is my hope that this campaign is something that will be going on a decade from now," he said.
The Montana Meth Project did a large-scale survey of meth use and attitudes last August, just before launching the first advertising campaign, and conducted a follow-up survey in February and March.
The main finding of the survey, Siebel said, is that "everybody has seen the ads." About 90 percent of the 1,460 people surveyed recalled having seen anti-meth advertising on television, and two-thirds of them remembered seeing or hearing such advertising in print publications, on the radio or on billboards.
Another significant finding was that 48 percent of parents surveyed said TV commercials prompted them to discuss methamphetamine with their children, compared with 30 percent in the August survey.
"That might be the most important thing we're doing here is prompting parent-child discussions," Siebel said.
Changes in perception were also noted in the survey. In more than half of the 14 risk areas measured, the perception that meth use carries great risk of harmful consequences increased by at least 10 percentage points since the August survey among all age groups.
Teens also were more likely in this survey to reject the idea that meth conferred certain benefits on users. An increasing number of teens, for example, disagreed with the idea that meth makes people more attractive, more popular or happier. In some cases, perceptions had shifted by as much as 30 percentage points in the past six months.
Besides having an impact on the people of Montana, the ads are being noticed around the country, which has been a goal of the Montana Meth Project since it was founded. Siebel said he targeted Montana because it had a small population, a "reasonably critical" meth problem and an affordable media market.
According to a fact sheet distributed at the meeting in Billings on Wednesday, the Montana Meth Project has been featured in The New York Times and on National Public Radio, CNN, MSNBC and NBC nightly news. Siebel has also met with people in Arizona, Utah and Illinois who are interested in starting their own meth projects. Several officials from Arizona, where the interest is particularly strong, attended Siebel's press conference in Helena.
The project has drawn attention as much for the reach of the advertising campaign as for the gritty nature of the ads. The first round featured short radio testimonials from young ex-users, all of them Montanans, and graphic, sometimes horrifying images that ran on television, in newspapers and on billboards.
Siebel said the radio ads were especially well received because they featured real kids talking about their experiences in ways other young people could relate to. For the new round of advertising, he said, the Montana Meth Project had hoped to use footage of meth addicts doing the drug and talking about their lives, but it was decided the segments couldn't be used.
"Reality is just too tough," Siebel said. Though kids could see themselves in the ex-users who appeared on the radio, he said, the people they filmed using meth were so high and so messed up that kids would have had trouble relating to them.
Siebel lauded the cooperation the Montana Meth Project has received from media outlets, which are matching the project's investment dollar for dollar, and from Lamar Advertising of Billings, which has gone out of its way to find the best locations for billboards featuring anti-meth ads.
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Dan Flansburg
wrote on
April 20, 2006 8:07 AM It would be awesome if the state of SD. would adopt this meth campaign.I see what the task force is doing now is working but this would really nip it in the butt.
twizz
wrote on
April 20, 2006 8:51 AM this article and this entire prject has a really big affect on the teenage life. The comertials that are coming out are raelly graghic and i think that they do get the point across to few if not many of us.
wyomaniac
wrote on
April 20, 2006 9:58 AM I applaude Mr. Siebel. This is a very aggressive start of a solution to an insidious drug. We must first admit that there is a problem, and that it is not going to go away by itself. Then we try to combat the problem. Our present course of action seems to be locking people up. Which isn’t working. Our prisons are full of addicts and drug dealers. These addicts and dealers are our children, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. So we build more prisons? The other course we try is sending the few lucky addicts that have insurance through treatment. It’s a lot easier to stop something you never start. I pray that we as a society step up to the plate and continue Mr. Siebel’s efforts. The money we spend in front of this epidemic is money we don’t spend cleaning up the carnage and devastation that Meth creates. Don’t use Meth – Not even once….
OneWayOut
wrote on
April 20, 2006 12:55 PM Talk, talk, talk. The only way out of this epidemic is to control the worldwide free-market overproduction of ephedrine drugs by the drug cartels (legal ones) so that the drug cartels (illegal ones) can't buy the key ingredients of meth by the ton. Market research that Mr. Money. Free-market solutions will not work. I'm gonna hammer that nail. Or would you rather continue to keep kids that probably weren't gonna shoot or snort meth from shooting or snorting met anyways? You all are looking at the end result - the victims - of this epidemic, and not even addressing the perpetrators - legal, free-market drug producers. Just say no? How about "no thank you"? Are you serious? Listen to yourselves. Nancy Regan was wrong. Are we worried about which drug we're on or who's drug we're on?
hit home
wrote on
April 20, 2006 3:42 PM I am close to someone who was a meth addict. She has been clean for 3 1/2 years now, but still has cravings every once in a while for it. She says when she sees these commercials that it reminds her of what it was really like to be on meth and her cravings go away. When my daughter and I see the commercials it makes us cringe. From talking to numerous people I am convinced that this is the best thing so for in the prevention of drug use. Kids watch it and actually ask questions about drugs instead of the info "going in one ear and right out the other ear". Instead of just talking to kids about drugs we are showing them the reality of what they do to a person. I am glad to see the commercials and I wish that they would play them more often. I believe that these will definatley put a huge dent in the meth problem and prevent more children from using meth and other drugs. If we get rid of ephidrine dealers and pushers will only find other ingredients to use.
OneWayOut
wrote on
April 20, 2006 4:57 PM Hit Home, other tweakers like your friend, get the urge to crank up, unlike your friend, when they see these info-commercials. If dealers can't get ephedrine based drugs, can they still make meth? Please check out the attached link. Here's a sample:
"In 2004, Mexico imported 224 tons of psuedoephedrine, a figure estimated to be double the national demand for cold medicine, and quadruple the 66 tons imported in 2000."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/etc/updmexico.html
OneWayOut
wrote on
April 20, 2006 5:02 PM And I think that's "whose" instead of "who's" in my first post, for all you wordsmiths out there. As far as Nancy is concerned, I could give a rip how she spelled her last name.
steerlers fan
wrote on
September 25, 2006 7:41 PM To Mr. Siebel,
I was one of the kids who did the project and I think it was really fun to do! My parents also think it was awesome to do that they think the project should be done again to see how many more people participate in the project.
I got second one my project and I am planing on putting it towards college or pay to get braces!:)
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Whether or not the first blitz of advertising sponsored by the Montana Meth Project is getting results, it is definitely getting noticed.
According to a survey conducted for the project by Millward Brown, an international independent research company, about 90 percent of all respondents recalled having seen meth-prevention television advertising in Montana.
The survey involved 1,460 people including youths 12-17 years old, young adults 18-24 and parents. According to information included in a report on the survey, the 90 percent awareness levels for meth-prevention TV advertising "are at levels seen only by the world's most recognizable brands."
To view the complete survey results, including a copy of the questionnaires used in the survey, go to www.montanameth.org.
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