III. Program Description

The campaign consisted of three components: (1) media with an enforcement message, (2) enhanced periods of enforcement surrounding the July 4th and winter holidays focusing on the use of sobriety checkpoints, and (3) sustained enforcement between holiday enforcement periods.  The media campaign spanned seven months beginning in June at a cost of $2,199,533.  The enforcement grant funds totaled $387,555 for the July 4th holiday period, $792,312 for the expanded grant period between holidays, and $402,702 for the winter holiday period. Connecticut spent a total of $3,782,101 on its 2003 impaired-driving publicity and enforcement program.  Expenditures totaled about $1.08 per Connecticut resident using U.S. Census Bureau estimates of Connecticut’s population as of July 1, 2003 (3,483,372).

A. Media

Congress appropriated $11 million for paid media.  Of the total, $5.5 million was spent to purchase air time on national TV, and the remainder was used to develop the ad used and for paid media in the 13 strategic evaluation States chosen because of their high alcohol-related fatality trend or high number of alcohol-related fatalities.  Although Connecticut was not a strategic evaluation State, it followed NHTSA’s impaired-driving high-visibility enforcement model including using NHTSA’s ads.  The TV ad was targeted especially to young men 18 to 34 years old and was placed on TV programs often viewed by this group.  The ad ran during the June 20–July 13, 2003, period.

Cronin and Company, Inc., of Glastonbury, Connecticut, managed Connecticut’s paid and statewide earned media components.  For each campaign period, a four- to six-week paid and earned media (media coverage a program “earns” whenever it makes the news in print or broadcast) campaign with a strong enforcement message was implemented (See appendix A for media campaign details).  The focus of the Connecticut-funded paid media campaign was primarily men 21 to 34 years old due to their high rate of involvement in alcohol-related crashes.  To supplement the paid media campaign, the Governor’s Highway Safety Office coordinated an earned media effort focusing on special enforcement efforts and involving State and local law enforcement personnel and other government officials.  The media campaigns focused on two holiday periods during 2003 and were also designed to create the perception of sustained enforcement between these two holiday periods.  The first media campaign began in late March 2003, and reached its peak during July 4th.  The second media campaign began just before Thanksgiving and focused on the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s (winter) holiday period that spanned from November 24, 2003, until January 31, 2004.  Some media components continued throughout the 11-month campaign.