Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
A 330, 000 multimedia advertising campaign was undertaken in 4 U. S. cities (Columbus, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; Altoona, Pennsylvania; Jackson, Mississippi) November 1970-May 1971 by the Family Planning Evaluation project (University of North Carolina) to evaluate the cost and effectiveness of commercial advertising in increasing contraceptive utilization among active fertile individuals. The ads ran on radio, television, in special editions of Life and Look, and in local daily, ethnic, and community newspapers. The level of complaints was below what had been anticipated, and there was no unacceptable community opposition even in the saturation cases. The level of awareness was higher during the campaign for television and radio advertising but not for newspaper and magazine advertising (interviews). The number of "new" patients to family planning clinics was low (ranging from 24 to 444) and it appears that mass media advertising is not an effective recruitment technique. No differences were found in new prescription sales of oral contraceptives or sales of condoms between the media sites and their controls during the 6-month campaign. Mass media campaigns might be more effective in non-US settings where contraceptive knowledge is not great and usage is not widespread.
Udry et al. (Sat,) studied this question.