New Ads Warn Teens ... 'Don't Believe the Type'

The Advertising Council, in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), launched today a series of national public service advertisements (PSAs) designed to raise awareness about the prevalence of online sexual exploitation and to help teenage girls better protect themselves against online sexual predators. The new PSAs are the second installment of the campaign, which began in May 2004, and debut this month to coincide with Internet Safety Month.

While June is also a time to recognize the benefits of the Internet, NCMEC and the Ad Council chose this month to launch the campaign to remind families that, just like in the "real" world, there are people who want to harm children in the "virtual" world. With the advent of the Internet, many child- predators have quickly adapted to the technology and use it to contact potential victims in their attempts to perpetrate crimes against children. According to a U.S. Department of Justice study, of the estimated 24 million child Internet-users, one in five has received unwanted sexual solicitations with teen girls being the primary target, receiving two-thirds of the solicitations. NCMEC cases and focus group testing also show that many teen girls are particularly susceptible to these predators because they tend to be more focused on relationships; therefore, they are vulnerable to the "grooming" techniques used by child sexual predators.

Sponsored by NCMEC and created pro bono by ad agency Merkley + Partners, the new PSAs are an extension of the first national multi-media campaign designed to address this issue. The initial round of PSAs aimed to educate parents about what they could do to protect their children online, whereas the new ads target the teens themselves. The new PSAs seek to prevent girls from forming inappropriate online relationships with older men in an effort to reduce their risks of sexual exploitation and abduction. The television, radio, magazine and Internet ads direct teens to visit http://www.cybertipline.com/ to get tips on how to prevent, detect, and report online sexual exploitation.

"Our research shows that many teen girls are not aware of the potential dangers of communicating with older men online and they believe that it can lead to genuine relationships," said Peggy Conlon, President & CEO of The Advertising Council. "These new dramatic, yet identifiable, ads will continue the awareness we achieved in the first round of work by showing girls the potential dangers and empowering them with resources to help protect themselves against online sexual predators."

In the first six months of the Online Sexual Exploitation campaign, the parent-targeted PSAs received more than $29 million in donated advertising time and space from the media. In addition, according to a recent Ad Council study, parents who saw the PSAs were significantly more likely to have talked to their children about the potential dangers of chatting online with people you don't know.

"Our goal is to reach teens before predators do," said NCMEC President Ernie Allen. "The Ad Council campaign has proven successful in reaching adults, and we hope that our message will carry over to teen girls to help them identify, prevent and report sexual exploitation they encounter while online."

The new television and radio spots, which are also available in Spanish, show teen girls how easily a predator can manipulate their insecurities and end with the tagline, "Don't Believe the Type." To view the PSAs, please visit http://www.adcouncil.org/campaigns/online_sexual_exploitation/.

"As parents and as people who watch the 11:00 news each night, this issue is obviously dear to our hearts," said Andy Hirsch, Executive Creative Director/Partner at Merkley + Partners. "We hope this campaign can lend a helping hand to help stop online sexual predators."

Per the Ad Council model, the PSAs are being distributed to more than 28,000 media outlets nationwide later this month and will run and air in advertising time and space donated by the media.

Merkley + Partners

Merkley + Partners (http://www.merkleyandpartners.com/) is a leading full- service advertising agency. Founded in 1993, M+P has more than a half billion dollars in billings and more than 250 employees. Headquartered in New York City, clients include: Arby's, BMW Motorcycles, Citigroup, Fila, Lipitor, Mercedes-Benz USA, Prevacid and Smith Barney. M+P is a part of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) , a leading global marketing and communications company.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which works in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. NCMEC works to combat possession, manufacturing and distribution of child pornography; online enticement of children for sexual acts; child prostitution; child sexual tourism; extra-familial child sexual molestation; unsolicited obscene material sent to a child; and misleading domain names. To date, NCMEC has handled more than 330,000 reports of these offenses from the public through its congressionally mandated CyberTipline (http://www.cybertipline.com/), with more than 13,000 of those reports categorized as online enticement. For more information about NCMEC, call 1- 800-THE-LOST or visit http://www.missingkids.com/.

The Advertising Council

The Ad Council is a private, non-profit organization with a rich history of marshalling volunteer talent from the advertising and media industries to deliver critical messages to the American public. Having produced literally thousands of PSA campaigns addressing the most pressing social issues of the day, the Ad Council has effected, and continues to affect, tremendous positive change by raising awareness, inspiring action and saving lives. To learn more about the Ad Council and its campaigns, visit http://www.adcouncil.org/.

Source: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

CONTACT: Ellyn Fisher of The Ad Council, +1-212-984-1964,
efisher@adcouncil.org; Jennifer Getschmann of Merkley + Partners,
+1-212-366-3193, jgetschmann@merkleyandpartners.com; or Tina Schwartz of
NCMEC, +1-703-837-6111, tschwartz@ncmec.org

Web site: http://www.ncmec.org/
http://www.merkleyandpartners.com/
http://www.adcouncil.org/
http://www.cybertipline.com/
http://www.missingkids.com/