This is going to be a long post, so for all of you (if anyone even reads my meanderings) who want a quick fix to a complicated issue, click the 'go away' button now.
Most likely via our PSA Research Center, which stimulates a fair amount of inquiry regarding public service advertising and related issues, I received an email recently from a young reporter in China. She asked some very good questions which we will eventually post to our FAQs so others will have the benefit of the exchange.
One of her questions had to do with the regulation of the broadcast industry by the FCC and I explained things to her as best I could. To reinforce my response, I went to Wikipedia, only to discover that this most trusted source was giving out erroneous information in terms of what the FCC mandates. I haven't taken the time to try and correct Wikipedia yet, but for more information on that topic, go to our post below.
It is very interesting to note that other countries have a robust PSA "industry," and that their intellectual curiosity about public service advertising seems to surpass ours. I say that because the only book that we are aware of dedicated to the subject is titled: "Public Service Advertising - Some Issues and Campaigns." Guess where it is published...in the U.S., which invented the advertising industry? Nope...India. We were asked to write a couple of chapters in the book and one of them can be accessed at http://www.psaresearch.com/PSA-BOOK.pdf.
One could argue that recruiting posters from the Revolution were a form of public service advertising. Unquestionably the widely-read pamphlets of Thomas Paine called Common Sense, advocating our independence from England, were a form of PSAs. Yet in spite of this, there is so little written about such an important subject.
One of the best coffee table books about advertising was published by Advertising Age, called Advertising – the First 200 Years in America. If you make it towards the back of this wonderful book, which tells about a force that helped to shape America’s economic landscape, there is a chapter titled: Causes – Advertising in the Service of the Community. It is disappointing that this important chapter was placed towards the back of the book - almost a footnote - after 15 previous chapters dedicated to selling goods and services.
As an indication of how big this "industry" is, the National Association of Broadcasters tells us that the amount of public service airtime donated by their member stations amounts to $10 billion, and that is only from the broadcaster perspective. No one knows how much the feds and the non-profit world spend on PSAs.
Perhaps more importantly, no one knows how much is misspent on campaigns. Read our post below how the government spent $82.5 million on 57 campaigns funded by U.S. taxpayers that had no evaluation component. In other words, organizations were given, on average, nearly $1.5 million per campaign to spend as they chose, without any reporting requirements whatsoever. As a professional PSA campaign evaluator, we find this to be beyond irresponsible, with respect to taxpayer expenditures.
What we do know is that the federal government hands out contracts to the Ad Council without competitive bidding, which the last time we checked, is illegal. And guess who put a clause in a bill currently in circulation stipulating that the Ad Council should be given a contract? Congress itself...the institution that makes our laws. Now, lest anyone take me to task for bad mouthing the Ad Council, that is definitely not the case. They are a fine organization with a long history of advancing important public service issues.
However, the U.S. government has contracting regulations and laws that we must all abide by, except if you are fortunate enough to be the Ad Council. Why is this important? If there is no competition for a public education contract, then how do we know that the contractor costs are fair and reasonable? How about all the other smaller mom and pop businesses who struggle to get on the GSA Schedule to try and compete for contracts, when our lawmakers are handing out contracts to organizations with a strong lobbying presence in Washington?
There is also no organization dedicated to the field of public service advertising, or anything close. There used to be something called the National Broadcast Association for Community Affairs, comprised of public service directors from mostly major market TV stations. I was fortunate enough to serve as the chairman of its non-profit affiliate called the Partners in Public Service. It helped non-profit and federal agency staff meet broadcasters on a personal level at least once a year. It also provided a venue for exchanging best practices, and sadly met its demise some 7 years ago, which is another story.
There are also no evaluation standards governing the PSA industry to permit producers and distributors to compare results from one campaign to another using meaningful metrics. If we generate $10MM in ad equivalency value using reliable data sources, and another organization reports $100MM in value using questionable sources - or worse yet cooks the books - shouldn't that be a problem in terms of credibility for our business? Lawyers, architects, CPAs, the public relations and advertising professions have standards, but there are none governing the public service business.
Finally, the more societal problems we have, the more we need an organization to help lobby Congress for more funding of important social campaigns. Our history is replete with examples of how well- funded public education campaigns can help change attitudes and behavior towards important social issues. What we need now is for all of us in our business to work together for meaningful change, instead of being independent voices in the wilderness.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
PSA Myths
Having spent nearly 40 decades working in various aspects of the advertising profession - most of this time dealing with public service ads - we have heard just about every misperception about PSAs, many of which are disseminated by organizations which should do some research to get their facts straight. What caused me to write this latest post is that even Wikipedia, the wonderful on-line encyclopedia, doesn't get it right when it comes to PSAs. For example, here is what Wikipedia says about the subject:
"In the United States, the granting of television and radio licenses by the FCC is contingent upon the station broadcasting a certain amount of public service advertising. To meet these requirements, many broadcast stations in America air the bulk of their required public service announcements during the late night or early morning when the smallest percentage of viewers are watching, leaving more day and prime time commercial slots available for high-paying advertisers."
There are at least two mistakes in this paragraph. First, the FCC DOES NOT mandate that broadcast stations air a prescribed number of PSAs, with the exception of the Children's TV Act, which applies to a very narrow topic. What the FCC requires is that stations must prove they broadcast in the public interest, and PSAs are one of many ways they prove they are doing so.
Secondly, and perhaps a more egregious error, is the statement that "the bulk of PSAs air during the late night or early morning when the smallest percentage of viewers are watching..."
A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation notwithstanding, (which was based on a very narrow sample) we have been evaluating PSA campaigns in every market in the U.S. for nearly three decades. For the past 10 years or so, our data source for TV PSA airplays is from the A.C. Nielsen company which has an electronic monitoring system to detect PSAs. To our knowledge, the accuracy of their data is beyond reproach.
Using Nielsen data as our source, a campaign we distributed for the Make-A-Wish Foundation shows that of the 37,461 airplays that were generated, half of them were used in the best dayparts - from 7AM to midnight. In another example, a campaign we distributed for the Catholic Campaign on Human Development, of the 28,464 airplays, 64% of them were used in the best dayparts. These two examples are very typical of the daypart dispersion for TV PSA usage.
It is exactly for this reason that we created the Public Service Advertising Research Center, and more specifically, the Frequently Asked Questions on that site, which can be accessed at http://www.psaresearch.com/faq.html.
If a government agency is going to spend $5 million of our taxpayer funds on a national PSA campaign, or if a non-profit organization is going to use its donor contributions to fund a campaign, it seems to me they should do some research on the topic to find out what works and what doesn't. Further, it seems to me they would want to know something about media usage patterns and what they can do to maximize the exposure for their issue or campaign.
Another example which shows that many PSA producers don't know much about the topic for which they are creating expensive PSAs, is the spot lengths that get most frequently used. While it is counter-intuitive, our data shows, in one campaign after another where a 60-second PSA was included in the package, that :60s will get more airplay than a shorter length spot. Why is this important ? First, you can tell a more compelling story with a longer length message. Secondly, you can take longer to promote your call to action, i.e. call/write/visit a website. And finally, a :60 is worth twice the value of a :30 and four times the value of a :15. For most organizations, the value of the airtime generated is the most important determinant of success for a campaign, so this is not a minor point.
Our recommendation....do your homework. Talk to the media to find out what kind of issues they are airinig and supporting. Talk to other colleagues who have done PSAs and find out what they have learned. Most importantly, call a couple of distributors because they are the ones with their ear to the ground day in and day out and know a lot about what works. Oh, and lest we be guilty of self-promotion...visit our PSA Research Center, because if it is good enough for Google to rank it the number one unpaid citation when the words "public service advertising" are typed into the search string, we must be doing something right.
"In the United States, the granting of television and radio licenses by the FCC is contingent upon the station broadcasting a certain amount of public service advertising. To meet these requirements, many broadcast stations in America air the bulk of their required public service announcements during the late night or early morning when the smallest percentage of viewers are watching, leaving more day and prime time commercial slots available for high-paying advertisers."
There are at least two mistakes in this paragraph. First, the FCC DOES NOT mandate that broadcast stations air a prescribed number of PSAs, with the exception of the Children's TV Act, which applies to a very narrow topic. What the FCC requires is that stations must prove they broadcast in the public interest, and PSAs are one of many ways they prove they are doing so.
Secondly, and perhaps a more egregious error, is the statement that "the bulk of PSAs air during the late night or early morning when the smallest percentage of viewers are watching..."
A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation notwithstanding, (which was based on a very narrow sample) we have been evaluating PSA campaigns in every market in the U.S. for nearly three decades. For the past 10 years or so, our data source for TV PSA airplays is from the A.C. Nielsen company which has an electronic monitoring system to detect PSAs. To our knowledge, the accuracy of their data is beyond reproach.
Using Nielsen data as our source, a campaign we distributed for the Make-A-Wish Foundation shows that of the 37,461 airplays that were generated, half of them were used in the best dayparts - from 7AM to midnight. In another example, a campaign we distributed for the Catholic Campaign on Human Development, of the 28,464 airplays, 64% of them were used in the best dayparts. These two examples are very typical of the daypart dispersion for TV PSA usage.
It is exactly for this reason that we created the Public Service Advertising Research Center, and more specifically, the Frequently Asked Questions on that site, which can be accessed at http://www.psaresearch.com/faq.html.
If a government agency is going to spend $5 million of our taxpayer funds on a national PSA campaign, or if a non-profit organization is going to use its donor contributions to fund a campaign, it seems to me they should do some research on the topic to find out what works and what doesn't. Further, it seems to me they would want to know something about media usage patterns and what they can do to maximize the exposure for their issue or campaign.
Another example which shows that many PSA producers don't know much about the topic for which they are creating expensive PSAs, is the spot lengths that get most frequently used. While it is counter-intuitive, our data shows, in one campaign after another where a 60-second PSA was included in the package, that :60s will get more airplay than a shorter length spot. Why is this important ? First, you can tell a more compelling story with a longer length message. Secondly, you can take longer to promote your call to action, i.e. call/write/visit a website. And finally, a :60 is worth twice the value of a :30 and four times the value of a :15. For most organizations, the value of the airtime generated is the most important determinant of success for a campaign, so this is not a minor point.
Our recommendation....do your homework. Talk to the media to find out what kind of issues they are airinig and supporting. Talk to other colleagues who have done PSAs and find out what they have learned. Most importantly, call a couple of distributors because they are the ones with their ear to the ground day in and day out and know a lot about what works. Oh, and lest we be guilty of self-promotion...visit our PSA Research Center, because if it is good enough for Google to rank it the number one unpaid citation when the words "public service advertising" are typed into the search string, we must be doing something right.
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