Cooley Advertising & Public Relations

Arizona Abstinence Until Marriage

Situation

Arizona suffers from an unusually high out-of-wedlock birth rate. To help curb the overwhelming rate,
Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) initiated a comprehensive, education-based statewide
program with multiple components. This program included 17 educators that taught the abstinence only
message to their respective students and informed the ethnically diverse target market about abstinence as a healthy lifestyle choice.

After moving ADHS through our BrandVantageTM process to gain marketing insights for strategy development, Cooley developed a well-rounded branding campaign that incorporated broadcast, print, collateral and public relations. In addition to a variety of marketing mediums, we also forged critical relationships with key constituents that included legislature, statewide coalitions and contractors, program managers and media representatives across the state. The campaign generated support and acceptance of practicing abstinence in a society that is inundated with sexually explicit messages.

Advertisements featured a toll free number, 1-888-844-WAIT, for interested viewers to call and receive more information about the program. A corresponding brochure was also designed, as well as a website (www.sexcanwait.com) which served as an informational resource. The campaign materials were produced in both English and Spanish.

Research indicated that teens responded to and recalled the consequence-based messages. Knowing this, we moved forward with a strategy that centered on pre-marital sex as a game of risk. The tagline “Sex: a game not worth the risk! Abstinence Until Marriage.” We launched the campaign statewide using a variety of advertising mediums. The advertising campaign was supported with public relations, contractor support, website, hotline, promotional items and community outreach.

Results

• The Abstinence Until Marriage program, which started from ground zero, currently has almost 140,000 students enrolled.
• On behalf of ADHS, LeCroy & Milligan Associates, Inc. conducted an “Abstinence Only Education Program Media Campaign Awareness Survey” in 2002. The survey included 900 randomly surveyed adolescents ages 12-18 in Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff. The evaluation component of the campaign informed us that we achieved an 85% recall of our advertising message within our targeted demographic.
• In addition, ADHS’s Bureau of Public Health Statistics revealed a 9.8% decrease in out-ofwedlock teenage pregnancies across the State of Arizona.
• The campaign received numerous industry recognition awards including Tellys, Addys and Hemmy Awards.
• Through extensive public relations efforts, the campaign was featured in local and national media including newspapers, every major network television news affiliate in Phoenix and Tucson, NBC-Dateline, YM Magazine, and Time Magazine to name a few.
• Because of the strong word-of-mouth appeal of the campaign, additional states such as Iowa, Montana, Nevada and North Carolina requested the broadcast commercials for airing in their local communities.