Skip to main content
The Oregon Health Authority has scrapped plans to continue showing anti-alcohol advertising on Oregonians’ televisions this summer after a similar ad was criticized by the alcohol industry.
Dr. Timothy Noe, the head of OHA’s Center for Prevention and Health Promotion, delivered the news to a meeting of a subcommittee of the state’s Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission yesterday. “We communicated to partners that we were going to do media buys over the summer before we had a chance as leadership to really think it through,” he said.
OHA remains “committed to the Rethink the Drink brand” and is continuing to run advertising online on social media platforms like Facebook, Noe said. The agency wants to wait to see the effects of its prior campaign before moving forward, and there’s talk of pivoting to an “LGBTQ+ campaign” for TV, he added.
Unmentioned: the firestorm that erupted after the agency’s last TV buy.
During holiday football games, the agency ran a 60-second spot in which a father struggles—and ultimately fails—to explain to his young daughter why he drinks.
The alcohol industry was irate, and sent a flurry of letters to Gov. Tina Kotek in response. One, from the Oregon Beverage Association, accused OHA, which leads the state’s public health efforts, of harboring a “neo-prohibitionist agenda.” (Kotek’s office denied having any involvement in OHA’s decision to scrap the campaign, although a spokesperson noted that the governor had “asked the agency to add transparency markers to paid media” in January.)
This is the latest triumph for the industry in its bitter fight with advocates and OHA over efforts to address alcohol’s $4.8 billion cost to the state. Such efforts include hiking taxes to pay for behavioral health treatment.
WW previously reported that the agency’s new director, Dr. Sejal Hathi, has handed a series of victories to the industry in recent months, including interceding on its behalf in the wording of an alcohol awareness press release and unknowingly releasing a controversial report that turned out to be based partly on industry-funded research.
Yesterday’s announcement was met with some surprise by members of the subcommittee, which had been coordinating parallel local efforts. “It would have been really beneficial to have had some sort of statement or opportunity months ago, when the decision was actually made,” said Lyndi-Rae Petty, an alcohol and drug prevention coordinator at Washington County.
Noe said a desire not to “influence” the legislative process was another reason OHA scrapped the summer ad buy. “We thought, well, maybe this is not a good time to be running a mass media campaign,” he said.
OHA would consider resuming the campaign this fall, he added, as long as the agency can find the money.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of the Oregon Health Authority’s director, Dr. Sejal Hathi.