AD COUNCIL AND NATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION COUNCIL LAUNCH NEW CYBE

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The Advertising Council, in partnership with the NationalCrime Prevention Council, U.S. Department of Justice, andCrime Prevention Coalition of America, joined today to announce the launch of a new public service advertising PSAcampaign designed to educate tweens and teens about how they can play a role in ending cyberbullying.

We are delighted to be joining the National Crime PreventionCouncil to launch this new campaign to help teenagers combatcyberbullying, said Peggy Conlon, president and CEO of TheAdvertising Council. This is a serious issue in ourcommunities and we believe these PSAs will inspire young Americans to stop cyberbullying.

Bullying is a widespread problem for our nations youth, andwith the rapid rise in electronic communications,cyberbullying using the Internet or mobile devices to send orpost harmful or cruel text or images has become a seriousissue. According to the National Crime Prevention Council, 43percent of teens 13 to 17 years old say they have experiencedcyberbullying in the past year. Furthermore, studies show thatteen girls are the biggest perpetrators. The study also foundthat nine in ten teens who had experienced cyberbullying 92percent reported that they knew the person who was bullyingthem. Additionally, teens are twice as likely to talk to afriend about the incident rather than their parents or another adult.

Created by volunteer ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, themultimedia campaign includes viral videos directed by JoePytka as well as radio and web advertising. A few of the radioand online banner PSAs feature an appearance by McGruff theCrime Dog an icon tweens welcome as a reassuring presence inthe advertising telling them to delete damaging emails or text messages and not to forward them.

Our work is based upon a simple insight If you wouldnt do itin person, why do it online? said Matthew Atkatz, ExecutiveCreative Director, Interactive & Media Convergence at Saatchi& Saatchi. He added We chose to focus on the web rather thanTV to speak with tweens and teens in the medium wherecyberbullying takes place we hope kids will watch these hard-hitting vignettes and share them to spread the message.

The PSAs direct audiences to the website www.ncpc.org to learnmore about cyberbullying. The website also includes a special downloadable document for parents.

NCPC has been a leader in bullying prevention education sincethe late 1990s, so it is fitting that we expand our efforts toaddress cyberbullying, said NCPC president and CEO AlfonsoLenhardt. Online bullying can have the same debilitatingeffects on a young person as face to face bullying depression,a drop in grades, loss of self esteem, suicide, and otherviolent acts. We simply must do something to stop this devastating problem.

Per the Ad Councils model, the ads will air in time that isdonated by the media. PSA messages from the McGruff Take ABite Out Of Crime public service advertising campaign havebeen the beneficiary of more than $1 billion in donated media advertising since the campaigns inception.

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