Friday Focus: Public Information Campaigns - 1980s Classics

This summer the updating and re-running of the Joe & Petunia Coastguard adverts has reawakened general interest in public information films. In the addictions field, campaigns have always been an important aspect of public health education and prevention work, and DrugScope has actively collected examples of public information material since its earlier incarnation as the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence.

Recent years have seen the introduction of modules on drugs in the media to courses for drugs workers, and students are being set assignments on the evolution of advertising in the public health sector. This academic type of enquiry runs alongside those from current practitioners seeking examples of this kind of work to inform their own commissioning of local education campaigns.

Currently the biggest media campaign is Talk to Frank, running since 2003 with the aims of ensuring that young people understand the risks involved in taking drugs and know where to go for advice and help; that parents have the knowledge and confidence to talk to their offspring; and that professionals are supported. (FRANK strategy web page, accessed 18/08/2006). A joint initiative between several Government Departments, led by the Home Office, the materials are plentiful (TV adverts, posters, postcards, business / wallet cards, leaflets and 'action updates') and strongly branded, just as we might expect from a 21st century campaign.

However, the materials about which we are asked most often date from the mid-1980s. Top of this list is teen soap Grange Hill's 'Just Say No' campaign (1986), which accompanied a storyline in which popular character Zammo developed a heroin problem. DrugScope holds a copy of the 7' single (released April 1986), accompanied by a poster (Doc. No. CUPBOARD 45465).

At the same time, the Government was running an anti-heroin campaign in England and Wales. 'Heroin Screws You Up' (1985-6) featured print and TV ads highlighting the socially isolating ('Dummy' ad) and disfiguring ('Skin Care By Heroin' ad, pictured) effects of the drug. Pre-campaign research found that young people believed that "a portrayal of heroin use is 'true to life' if it shows sunken eyes, double rings below, lank, unkempt hair, thin and wasted body, the downcast head. (Nicholas Dorn, 'Media Campaigns', Druglink, July/August 1986).

The success of these campaigns was called into question when one of the bus-stop ads ('At first he was sure he'd never be a heroin addict. Now he's not sure he'll ever be anything else') became a popular teen pin-up, and was linked by commentators to the appearance of 'heroin chic' on the catwalks. (Jason Burke and Tony Thompson, 'Drug video's shock tactics 'won't work'', The Observer, 3 March 2002).

Arguably the most significant public health campaign of the 1980s was 'AIDS: Don't Die of Ignorance' (1987). The leaflet (DrugScope Doc. No. 47385) was distributed to all households in the UK, while the low-tech 'Monolith' TV ad quickly became regarded as iconic. It represented the first 'mainstream' HIV campaign, recognising that "Anyone can get it, gay or straight, male or female." ('AIDS: Don't Die of Ignorance' campaign leaflet).

Prior to this, Government campaigns had targeted blood donors ('AIDS: imortant new advice for blood donors', DHSS, 1985, DrugScope Doc. No. 43261), and it was left to NGOs, such as the Terrence Higgins Trust, to provide outreach and information to 'HTLVIII' (as the virus was originally called) and AIDS sufferers.

One of the first posters aimed at injecting drug users was 'Take care: sharing needles and syringes can spread AIDS' (Terrence Higgins Trust, 1984. DrugScope Doc. No. 47108), while a general self-help and support group was run out of St Mary's Drug Dependency Unit and advertised throughout London ('Drug users / ex-users. Q. Are you concerned about HTLV-III and AIDS?' poster, Terrence Higgins Trust, 1984, DrugScope Doc. No. 46262). Avert.org provides an illustrated online essay on 'Historical HIV & AIDS Posters' as part of their section on 'HIV & AIDS: History, Pictures & Posters'.

You can see the 'Heroin Screws You Up - Dummy' and 'AIDS Monolith' films in the National Archives / Central Office for Information (COI) online exhibition of public information films, part of the COI's 60th anniversary celebrations. Today public tickets have gone on sale for the British Film Institute's season 'Stop! Look! Listen! - The COI & 60 Years of Public Information Film-making in Britain', which will feature the 'AIDS Monolith' on Monday 25 September in a programme entitled 'Your Very Good Health'. You can find out more on the COI website.

Anne Welsh
Information Officer - Bibliographic Services

'Skin Care by Heroin' picture Crown Copyright.