The “A Crying Shame” campaign is just one way MAFTA is reaching out to youths and parents about the negative and dangerous consequences of teen sex. The campaign’s primary message is “Abstinence – not having sex until marriage – IS the best choice.”

Objective:

Become an insightful and valuable resource for Milwaukee’s teens, parents and community on the topic of teen sex and abstinence until marriage. Support MAFTA to help it meet these goals:

• Reduce the number of adolescents engaging in sexual activity.
  
  
  
• Reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies among adolescents.
  
  
  
• Reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among adolescents.
  
  

Audience:

Our primary audience is today’s urban teen – ages 12 to 18 – living in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. Of the approximately 560,000 city residents, well over 90,000 are youths age 10 to 19. Population statistics tell us that over 45% of the Milwaukee community is white non-Hispanic; 37% is African-American and 12% is of Hispanic decent.

Strategies:

Our communications must be based on words and images that will resonate with today’s “Gen Y” generation and the parents of these youths. The “A Crying Shame” campaign will communicate a strong abstinence message, but at the same time, address the reality of the pressures and influential media messages teens are faced with day in and day out.

Characterized as self-confident, positive, self-reliant and motivated, Gen Y is accustomed to making choices and are more savvy about being marketed to. With the new media options available to them, they tend to distrust traditional advertising.

Competition for our audiences’ attention is fierce. Further, the idea of not having sex is often perceived as dull, boring and not interesting. To get noticed, our campaign must use words and visuals that are meaningful to our audiences’ ears/eyes.

Tactics:

The total 2007 – 08 campaignGenerate awareness and interest in the A Crying Shame campaign by promoting our theme, key messages and website address, www.ACryingShame.info. Potential awareness: 211,680 impressions for the women 35-44 target, and 661,010 impressions with teens. Ads will run Valentine’s Day 2008 through August 2008 on Milwaukee stations WJMR, WKKV and WXSS.

Public Relations: Create and maintain a win-win relationship with local media outlets (and key community organizations) by providing ongoing contact and information that is timely and newsworthy.

Cinema Advertising: Generate awareness and interest in the A Crying Shame campaign by promoting our theme, key messages and website address, www.ACryingShame.info. Movie-goers enjoy a relaxed, comfortable setting with no distractions; channel changers, commercials, telephones, etc. The theatre placement will begin Memorial Day 2008 – August 2008 and will be shown in the following Milwaukee-area cinemas: Mayfair Cinemas 18 and Marcus Theatres (Marcus Northtown and Marcus Southgate).

Website Development: Consistent with the “A Crying Shame” marketing campaign introduced in 2005/06, create a useful website at www.ACryingShame.info to enhance, support and build upon the organization’s key messages. The site will provide an ever-evolving resource on the topic of teen sex and abstinence until marriage for parents, youth and community organizations. As a go-to source for local families, the site will require ongoing updates and enhancements.

Call-to-Action:

All communications efforts drive our target audiences to the campaign website – www.ACryingShame.info. The site is designed to help teens and parents explore the topic of teen sex and most importantly the many reasons abstinence until marriage IS the best choice.

Improving Measurability
In previous years, we were not able to definitively identify how many visits to our campaign website were coming from our various campaign advertising efforts.

To gauge how many listeners are reacting to our radio advertising messages, we have changed the URL call-to-action to feature a different URL for each ad:

1. Radio spot running on WXSS – www.SexNoworLater.com
2. Radio spot running on WKKV – www.TeenSexFacts.com
3. Radio spot running on WJMR – www.NeverExpected.com
4. Cinema ad running on AMC Mayfair – www.TeenQuizOnline.com
5. Cinema ad running on Marcus Northtown – www.TheTeenQuiz.com
6. Cinema ad running on Marcus Southgate – www.TakeTheTeenQuiz.com

Each of these URLs will automatically redirect the visitor to our campaign site, www.acryingshame.info. Web log reports will tell us exactly how many visits were referred to our A Crying Shame website by each of these unique URLs.

Learn more about MAFTA (Milwaukee Alliance for Teaching Abstinence). To discover how you can help MAFTA get the word out and achieve its goals, please contact Dawn at Rosalie Manor & Community Services at email or 414-449-2868 x202.