Adlibbing: Inside PSAs

Advisory Committee

One of the questions I am asked often is “How does the Ad Council decide which campaigns to take on?”  Actually, new campaigns come to us in different ways.  We are often contacted by organizations that want us to take on our issue.  But just as often, we identify an important social issue we believe would benefit from a public service campaign and we find a non profit or government agency to sponsor it.

With limited resources, we only take on a handful of new campaigns each year, so the process for accepting them includes a very extensive proposals process and requires the approval of our Board’s Executive Committee.

Regardless of how the issue comes to our attention, our Advisory Committee on Public Issues provides the lens through which we evaluate potential campaigns.  This committee is comprised of leaders in the fields of education, health care, social services, crime prevention and more.  The committee also includes members who have extensive expertise in the needs of under served populations.

The Advisory Committee meets formally twice a year but more frequently as task forces to study specific issues.  Our most recent meeting was held earlier this month and was chaired by our new co-chairs, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher and David Bell, Chairman Emeritus of Interpublic.  For me, it was the most robust and collaborative discussion this group has held in my 7 years at the Ad Council.

Our meeting agenda was to examine the unique needs of the country’s Hispanic and African American communities.  We examined the campaigns that we currently have on our docket – at least half of which benefit these audiences—and examined gaps. 

However, the discussion that followed got even more interesting and meaningful.  Dr. Satcher set the tone by highlighting the unique challenges facing the African American community, especially young men. He spoke about the need to communicate a message of hope to many African American young men, who don’t see a future for themselves--once they've failed in school--other than crime and drugs.  He noted that African American women face their own set of challenges given the high number of incarcerated African American men and rising rates of HIV/AIDS. 

Education is the key to the future for at-risk kids.  The committee talked about the persistent achievement gap in this country whereby many Hispanic and African American children are falling behind by the first or second grade.  They noted that there is an “anti-intellectual” movement and many kids – not just African Americans kids – believe that if you achieve academically, you are “selling out”.   

Lacking basic literacy skills, “books are like kryptonite to these kids,” said Ivan Juzang, President of MEE Productions, a communications firm specializing in urban culture and society.  Therefore, when called upon to read, young black students, particularly males, act out rather than be made to look foolish.  And as Dr. Satcher pointed out, this quickly leads to a situation where these kids drop-out of school psychologically before they drop-out physically. 

Can we use communications to create hope for young black men?  Is there a way to make them believe in themselves?  Can we engage the public to make them aware that our at-risk youth need their help? That we have a collective responsibility to make sure all of America’s children – rich or poor – succeed?

And can communications be used to make education cool?  What about role models beyond athletes and rappers?  Is it possible to change the social norm?

These are intriguing issues and I invite your comments.

Buzzed Driving PSAs Spark Immediate Results

Creating social change takes time in a donated media model. The messages don’t have the benefit of a paid schedule that “flights” ads in a short period of time with high frequency. But with the support of the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) our drunk driving campaign broke through in just one week with quantifiable, measurable results.

First, some background on the campaign.

“Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” is one of the best examples of an Ad Council campaign that changed a social norm. When we took on the issue in 1982, drunk driving was the leading cause of traffic fatalities and, back then, you were more likely to hear “One more for the road”. This campaign’s brilliant intervention strategy empowered “friends” to take the keys away from someone who shouldn’t be driving. In the ensuing 20+ years, the Department of Transportation estimates that the reduction in drunk driving fatalities translates into 80,000 lives saved.

However, beginning in 2000, alcohol-related deaths began to rise again. This time attributed to impaired driving by young men who didn’t feel that they were part of the problem because they felt they were only “buzzed.” So our campaign strategy shifted to the objective of creating yet another social norm – “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving."

The brilliant creative for the campaign, created pro bono by Mullen, uses what the creative community describes as a “rug pull.” In the TV PSAs, the focus is an obviously drunk person that no one would trust to drive. The voiceover says “it’s easy tell if you’ve had way too many.” Then the focus shifts to an individual who clearly is impaired, although not falling down drunk, reaching for keys as they leave. The voiceover says “but what if you’ve had just one too many? Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving.” The rug pull. Take a look at the spots “Karaoke,” “Drum Solo” and “House Party."

The TVB, which represents local broadcast stations, rallied their members to roadblock the campaign the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day in 2005. An amazing 21,167 spots ran on 638 stations in 179 markets representing 97% of the population and totaling $3.8 million in donated media. That same week, the campaign was featured in 932 local news broadcasts on 333 stations and in 70 newspapers, reaching 49 million people and valued at $2.4 million.

This gave us the opportunity to do a nationwide survey that revealed remarkable results. Nearly 1 in 5 of all adults said they had seen or heard about the Buzzed Driving campaign. Among those who reported seeing the spots, 22% said they spoke with friends or family members about it. And 8 in 10 believed that the campaign will be very/somewhat effective in influencing people to reconsider getting behind the wheel if they are buzzed.

Dramatic results for a one week roadblock. This is the kind of progress that gets us all out of bed each morning!

Online Sexual Exploitation

Our “Online Sexual Exploitation” campaign has received extensive press coverage during this last week including stories in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today.  The news was a multimillion dollar commitment of donated media for the campaign from News Corp.  They will be supporting the campaign in the popular teen site, MySpace.com and on Fox broadcast and cable channels.  We couldn’t be more delighted by this commitment from our long time supporters at News Corp.

Although much of the coverage implied that this is a new campaign from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Ad Council, this campaign was originally launched in 2004 with a parent targeted effort.  That campaign and the teen target public service ads that launched June of 2005 (which News Corp is supporting), have already earned $83 million in donated media.

The first round of work (monitor and acronym) alerted parents to the fact that one in five children are sexually solicited online – and only one in four tell their parents.  It sent parents to www.cybertipline.com to learn more about their children’s online experience and ways to protect them.  The talented team at Merkley and Partners has created breakthrough, compelling work for this critical issue.  The second round that launched last year targets teens, particularly girls, who think it’s perfectly fine to give out personal information and develop a relationship online with older men.  This powerful work (Exchange) dramatically shows naïve young teens that while they think they are developing a meaningful relationship, they are being “played” by predators. Another spot (Evidence Bag) trades on the popularity of TV dramas that involve crime scene investigators to convey the possibility that meeting someone they meet online in real life could make them the victim of a crime.

Of course, in addition to the television, this work is available for radio, print and internet.  And I’m happy to report that it is being heavily supported in all these media platform.  Why?  The issue is critical as we see in the news seemingly everyday.  And when we see the powerful creative “Monitor” and “Exchange”, we feel the overwhelming desire to punch these creeps.  It’s no wonder our media partners jump at the opportunity to do something to protect these vulnerable kids from the despicable predators.  We know once the public sees the work, they will be moved to act.

Since last week's launch of our Autism Awareness campaign, the dialogue on speaking about autism has begun.  In response to some of your posts, our client, Autism Speaks does recognize that autism is a spectrum of disorders and that some individuals are higher functioning than others. One goal of this PSA campaign is to reduce the stigma associated with all autism spectrum disorders by drawing attention to the fact that autism is more common than people think. We appreciate your comments.

Autism

To hear from mothers and grandmothers how they watched in horror as their beautiful, verbal and loving toddlers withdrew into their own world that was now devoid of emotion and language, seemingly overnight, is to share their enormous pain.  Those are the stories Alison Singer and Suzanne Wright of Autism Speaks shared with us as we began working together on the Autism Awareness campaign that launches today.  Who wouldn’t want to help?

Incredibly, 1 in 166 children are diagnosed with Autism today.  This startling statistic provided a key insight for the creative team at BBDO New York who developed this campaign pro bono. They learned when parents knew how prevalent Autism is, they were motivated to learn their children’s developmental milestones to recognize early warning signs.  And early intervention has proven to help.

You can view these PSAs:  “Broadway”, “Baseball” and “Car Seat” which utilize images of toddlers and contrasts their odds of starring on Broadway, playing professional baseball or being injured in a car accident –in the tens or hundreds of thousands to one – with the odds of being diagnosed with Autism.  The PSAs also created for radio, print and the internet; provide a website and 800# to learn more.

The campaign will benefit from the support of Autism Speaks founders Bob and Suzanne Wright (Chairman and CEO,NBC/Universal).  But I’m sure the prevalence of this issue, coupled with the wonderful creative will attract wide donated media support.

What makes me so sure?  What we discovered is the number of people who have been touched by Autism.  Throughout the campaign’s development, we learned of children of the Agency Creative Team, The Ad Council Staff and many, many more people with relatives or friends who have received a diagnosis of Autism.  And when they understand the pain this disease causes, who wouldn’t want to help?