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Background: Health Canada is the lead department under the National Anti-Drug Strategy for the development and implementation of a five-year, multi-million youth drug prevention mass media campaign with a goal of increasing the awareness among youth (ages 13-15) about the dangers of experimenting with illicit drugs and to help youth make “smart choices” about drug use. This is the first national youth mass media anti-drug campaign since 1993 in Canada and the first to use innovative, new-media tactics
Program background: Communicating with tech-savvy teenagers can be a challenge for health communicators that are not well versed in the latest social media tools. Health Canada’s DrugsNot4Me drug prevention campaign overcame the communications barriers that are traditionally linked with trying to reach the highly segmented youth audience, particularly ages 13 to 14.
Evaluation Methods and Results: The campaign aims to equip parents with tools and information to help them to initiate open, informed discussions with their children regarding drug abuse by visiting the drugprevention.gc.ca web site and ordering an information booklet. The results were very positive with 73 percent average of the ads and one in four is taking action as a result of getting more information or taking to their teens.
Conclusions: By developing creative communications initiatives and capitalizing on the popularity of social media, Health Canada is educating youth about the dangers of illicit drug use and encouraging them to choose a drug-free lifestyle. Creative web applications, widgets, online quizzes and interactive activities, as well as using web analytics and other tracking measures, has enabled Heath Canada to optimize its communication with the target audience.
Implications for research and/or practice: This session would share the Government of Canada’s strategic marketing approach in using new communication technologies to combat illicit drug use among Canadian youth.