Straight Forward Don't Tell My Parents

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INTERACTIVE

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The Landscape

Sex. Five years ago it was a subject that Sioux Falls teens said their parents weren't talking about. Beyond that, the teens believed their parents were oblivious to the prevalence of underage and unprotected sex among their peers.

So, when the Sioux Falls Community Foundation decided to address an issue that area teens were facing, sex was the unanimous topic selected by their teenage Safety Council.

The Challenges

An interesting element of the campaign was that the students were tasked with providing the market intelligence and the initial concepting. From there, the agency stepped in to provide creative development, design, scripting and production.

The campaign had three great challenges: convincing parents that sex was an issue they needed to address, equipping parents to have "the talk" with their teens and convincing teens that they needed to be part of driving the conversation.

The Solution

The team named the campaign Don't Tell My Parents, and chose shock value as the most effective method to communicate the message. Messages changed from year to year, but the shock value remained the same. Bold statements sure to get parents' attention included, "Your son just contracted herpes," and provocative characters like London Ritz, a fake "sexpert celebutante" were created to encourage teens to visit her website for tips on sex, demonstrating that teens are learning about sex in all the wrong places.

Each element of the multimedia campaign: commercials, print ads, billboards and postcards drove viewers to the website, www.donttellmyparents.org, where parents are given information on the risks of early and unprotected sex and are educated on how to talk about sex with their teens. The teen advocacy group also hosted free dinner events for parents, Tell It to Me Straight, which tackled the sexual issues teens are facing and coached parents on how to address these issues.

The Results

The five-year campaign has gone beyond regional borders and is being presented as a model for similar campaigns across the country. The Medical Institute in Austin, TX bought the rights to use Don't Tell My Parents with intentions to customize the campaign to their region and reshoot spots in Spanish to reach their Hispanic audience.

If the shock value of the campaign was measured by the controversy created, it was a success. The campaign produced phone calls, letters and radio chatter, but most importantly, conversations between teens and their parents.

Statistical research showed that 83% of respondents had an awareness of the Don't Tell My Parents campaign's website, leading to a potential 19,000 conversations between parents and children. Of the respondents aware of the campaign, half had visited the site and attention continues to grow.