A.H.E.A.D. Coalition
Social marketing, attempting to change beliefs, attitudes and behaviors in prevention is tricky because the same old messages on the same old media eventually get overlooked. The A.H.E.A.D. Coalition, Advocates Helping to Educate Against Drugs in Montgomery County Indiana is excited to have found FACE products because the themes are edgy and cool and the media is unique. It isn’t unusual to see groups of teens clustered around new posters when we change messages each month in the framed sets we display in our three County high schools and junior highs. Window clings are the “new thing” for getting the word out in our community, and we stuck up the first ones a year ago. We received requests from teens for packs of them to stick on car windows. They were gladly distributed and showed up where teens showed up, which is exactly where we want the word out.
Living in a rural community with limited entertainment options, youth and adults count the hours waiting for new film releases at the local cinema and they pack the house every weekend. What a perfect place to send out underage drinking prevention messages to a captive target audience! Our grassroots prevention coalition worked with FACE to customize three theatre ads to be shown prior to feature films that were coordinated to our community-wide underage drinking reduction campaign. Two of the messages focused on increasing perceived peer disapproval of alcohol use, and one delivered the message to parents that youth access to alcohol is easier than they might think. How do we know the campaign tools worked? The overwhelming message the Coalition received from our youth prevention partners has been, “Those movie screen things are really cool! Can we do them again for our next campaign?” We also used a quick, 15 question media survey to assess the reach of the tools to youth and adults. Over 65% of respondents remembered the messages from the movie screens.
We are confident that FACE media content is thoroughly researched for timeliness and accuracy because we check the messages against statistics and information disseminated in current ATOD research reports before we place an order. Knowing that these solid messages are tested on focus groups before going public provides our Coalition with confidence that we are investing in prevention products that will work for our community.
Kelly Trusty, Executive Director
A.H.E.A.D. Coalition, Inc.
Advocates Helping to Educate Against Drugs
2045 W. 650 North Rd.
Crawfordsville, In 47933
Office765-339-7987
Cell 765-376-3596
Fax 765-339-7966
