Public Service Advertising Effectively

From what I have read a good bit of pubic service advertising is in fact not paid for, but used by donations in order to get a point across. For example, the "This is Your Brain on Drugs" commercial the Drug-Free America partnership, a non-profit organization, used the method of dramatic imagery to get the point across to viewers. Interestingly enough the article states that this commercial aired in 1987 and was very influential, and a second version, "aired in 1998 [and] was also highly effective" because of their dramatic use of imagery.

Like the Drug-Free America partnership Relay for Life is also a non-profit organization, and after reading about the effect that images had on viewers it made me wonder if the use of images in commercializing Relay for Life would also be effective. Being in the video department our focus is that of video and movement, but incorporating stills within the video could have an effect to the degree of the “This is Your Brain on Drugs” commercial.

The strength we had in our work was consistency; we discovered that by using the images on the poster that the print department were working on that we could impose a greater effect. By having this consistency we were then able to think creatively, and establish different ideas or methods with the three different themes.

If something were to be changed within our work it would have to be the lack of consistency with the footage that we shot while attending Relay for Life, and the direction we went with the themes. If, for example, we filmed the pirate theme video I feel that it would be difficult to incorporate the footage from Relay for Life within the clip, because the flow of the clip would not be consistent with the theme of digging for buried treasure.

Otherwise I feel strong about our effort to create uniqueness within the three different themes, and feel confident that collectively we all will have some effect on Relay for Life.

Exhibit 1: Effective advertising.

Image by: swanksalot