Calling public awareness campaigns "extremely effective" is a vast simplification of the matter. Public awareness campaigns are good at pushing a substance towards being banned. Once a substance is prohibited, it is subject to the "forbidden fruit" effect, which I've mentioned below [1]. Additionally, if public awareness campaigns continue under a ban, they're likely to induce a "boomerang" effect. For instance, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign may have promoted drug use and pro-cannabis attitudes in the young [2]. Crazy, right? Well, California did just legalize marijuana!
My guess is that parent is obliquely referring to that phenomenon.
In my chosen domain of rhinos, it is starting to look as though the public awareness campaigns run from 2008 to 2014 very well could've accidently spread the message that rhino horn is rare, risky, and desirable.