The Ad Council has partnered with the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Office on Violence Against Women and R/GA for a national multi-media ad campaign to help prevent teen violence and digital dating abuse.

Yahoo donated ad inventory to increase traffic to the campaign's mobile site. Digital technologies, including mobile phones and the Internet, have become weapons of teen dating abuse. In the digital age, the abuse can take many forms, including pressuring boyfriends and girlfriends to send nude photos, incessant, harassing texting, breaking into Facebook/MySpace accounts and snooping through call logs and texts on mobile phones.

"The goal of the campaign is to create awareness about and prevent digital dating abuse by giving teens the tools to recognize what types of digital behaviors could be classified as abuse," said Richard Ting, vice president/executive creative director of mobile and emerging platforms at Interpublic Group interactive agency R/GA, New York.

The Ad Council and R/GA discovered that digital methods of communication -- cell phones, IM, social networks -- play a major role in teen dating relationships, Mr. Ting said. It was in these spaces that teens were already experiencing things that could be considered abusive, or could turn into abuse.

"We also learned that it is fairly common for teens to be pressured to send nude pics, send and receive text messages and IMs that were controlling or incessant, and ?sneak into' one another's Facebook or MySpace accounts," Mr. Ting said.

These digital methods of communication have become weapons of teen dating abuse and helped fuel the development of the "That's Not Cool" campaign.

"The main objective of the campaign is to call attention to the issue and help teens determine for themselves what is and isn't acceptable behavior," Mr. Ting said. "Teens can also manage the abusive situation by emailing, texting or uploading digital Callout Cards to whoever is perpetrating the abuse."

"That's Not Cool" is R/GA's 360-degree pro bono marketing campaign which includes an interactive Web site, mobile component, television, radio, print, outdoor, posters in schools and malls and Web ads.

The "That's Not Cool" anti-digital-abuse campaign targets teenagers ages 13-15.

Because teenagers live on their mobile phones, it was a natural extension for R/GA to create a mobile site for "That's Not Cool" to help spread awareness.

The mobile site was launched this month at http://m.thatsnotcool.com.

The mobile ThatsNotCool.com features callout cards, a discussion forum and a "Need Help?" section for serious problems.

Yahoo donated media to help drive traffic to the site and reach the target audience in the medium where the abuse often occurs.

Through the mobile channel, visitors are able get information about digital dating abuse and send Callout Cards directly to the perpetrators causing the harassment to stop the abuse in its tracks.

The nature of the language was not forceful or offensive, but direct with a whimsical edge to clearly convey the message without preaching.

Thanks to the donated media from Yahoo, traffic to the mobile site increased by 400 percent, it is claimed.

Yahoo also reports that the click-through rate for the banners was triple the norm for the category.

The campaign marked the first time R/GA integrated a campaign of this magnitude across multiple channels, using nearly all agency departments.

And it was also the first time that the Ad Council partnered with an interactive agency to serve as its agency of record.

In addition to paid media, the campaign was promoted through social media channels, including a "That's Not Cool" YouTube channel, videos created by popular YouTube vloggers, a Facebook page and a MySpace page.

The public service advertising campaign also directs audiences to visit ThatsNotCool.com, where teens can find tools to "draw their own digital line" and a forum to discuss this form of abuse and seek help.

"A critical component to the campaign was the mobile site, because it connects with teens in one of the spaces where they were either doing the harassment or were getting harassed," Mr. Ting said.

"The mobile channel is an extension of the ?That's Not Cool' Web site and features some of the key functionality such as a mobile version of the Callout Cards," he said. "The Callout Cards are easily transmitted using SMS and have been very successful at spreading the word through the mobile space."