We often get requests from clients who are looking to help out, to do more charitable work. We developed a number of Public Service Announcements that we make available to all of our clients, at cost, to help them to do more charitable advertising.
According to The Week:
“About 58 percent of high school seniors admit to texting while driving, according to a new study of 15,000 teens. Texting and cellphone use behind the wheel is ‘a national epidemic,’ said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Associated Press”
Good PSAs are attention-getting, powerful, and push the envelope to get people to stop, look, listen, and respond — ideally changing their behavior.
Idea 1: “Message Delivered”
The headline is delivered in the same box as a text that’s just been sent, supported by a powerful message and visual. This idea also works in outdoor boards, as well as in a “guerilla”-marketing situation where the firm can actually produce the scene, with the crashed car and a sign next to it that says “Message Delivered. Don’t Text and Drive.”
Obviously, in print the idea can be done in many different ways with a variety of visual “accidents.” We like this for the power of the visual and the simplicity and clever use of the words.
Idea 2: “Status Changed”
The headline plays off of the idea of changing one’s status on Facebook. It has a powerful visual, with interesting “modern” way of conveying the message.
It implicitly says, “Your status has changed because you texted and drove. You are now dead.” There are other ways to do this as well which can be especially graphic and challenging (which a good PSA always tries to do.) For example, we could place gurneys of “dead people” around town with toe-tags that say “He texted. He drove. He died.”
Or it would also work with the changing status line, which is clever. Even more alarming and attention-getting would be to place life-sized severed arms holding cell phones around town. It’s the same message, but with even more stopping power. And it could generate lots of PR. So these two ideas, both powerful yet simple, sell the message that you shouldn’t text and drive.
If you are interested in licensing these images, contact us.
We offer them at a very low price, to encourage our clients and friends to use them and spread the word. They’re also available as billboards.
