The Rock Creek Blog // Industry News, Trends & Insights

Using PSAs as a Powerful Marketing Tool

Posted by: Kristen Newton, Director of Strategy Mar 27, 2009 0 Comments

Long a staple of the nonprofit marketing toolkit, new technologies and distribution channels have made public service announcements (PSAs) even more powerful at getting your message in front of the right audience and increasing the visibility of your organization and your cause. PSAs offer an affordable, flexible, and effective way to:

Position your organization as a leader and innovator
Drive traffic to your website
Conduct outreach in advance of fundraising drives
Promote a new service or program

Myths About PSAs

There are a number of myths surrounding the effectiveness of PSAs. These include:

The FCC no longer requires stations to air PSAs. This is true, but it doesn’t matter because stations still need PSAs to fill inventory.
PSAs only air in small markets. More than a third of all PSAs air in the top 50 TV markets and nearly half of all PSAs air in the top 50 radio markets.
PSAs only air when no one is watching or listening. Nearly half of all TV PSAs air between 5 a.m. and 4 p.m.; more than half of all radio PSAs air between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Formats

Different PSA formats have different advantages—and costs. Television (video) PSAs get the highest audience viewership numbers, but are the most expensive to produce. However, video PSAs are highly scalable. Many websites now accept video PSAs; video PSAs can be adapted for such new media opportunities as in-store media (e.g., Wal-Mart TV). Audio from video PSAs can easily be stripped out and used for radio PSAs. Radio PSAs are less expensive than TV, and offer you the ability to target your audience by format and day part.

Online PSAs are a new way to reach your target audience. By placing a banner PSA on a highly targeted website related to your cause or initiative, users can click through to your site to learn more.

Trends

This isn’t your father’s PSA any more. PSAs are now being developed and distributed in new and exciting ways.

Partnering with corporations to fund PSAs: If your nonprofit has a similar interest as a corporation that’s trying to advance a particular issue or agenda, you may want to consider partnering with that company to sponsor a PSA. What’s in it for the company? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in paid media.
Creating Hispanic versions of English campaigns: Hispanic media is underserved with PSAs, so PSAs offer a great way to break into the Spanish-speaking market. Note that in addition to your Spanish-language PSA, all other components of your campaign (website, print materials, etc.) must have corresponding Spanish-language versions.
Creating online campaigns: Online is the place to be, with $1.6B spent on social media platforms in 2008. The average person is online six hours per day and watches 24 hours of online video per month. Venues for online PSAs include TV stations, radio stations, newspaper websites; targeted website placements; social gathering sites (such as Facebook and Gather); and PSA multimedia press releases.
New distribution methods: Nonprofits are now able to pool their resources for distribution through “one source” methods, which involve “ganging” PSAs from different nonprofits on one tape and distributing the tapes to hundreds of national cable outlets, such as CNN, Lifetime, ESPN, and others. Costs are shared among the nonprofit “partners,” resulting in a fee that’s a fraction of what it would cost each nonprofit to distribute individually.

Want to Learn More?

Rock Creek Strategic Marketing can help you create your PSA, from concept and scripting to talent selection, production, and distribution. Contact Rock Creek to find out how we can help you develop and distribute your next PSA campaign.

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Kristen Newton

Director of Strategy