Entry 52 - PSA History 6

The Sixth Installment of PSA History talks about how certain groups used PSAs to get more members. While I might not agree with this, it's just a part of the Culture as a whole, so no point in going against it really.


Impact of Hollywood

Another innovative aspect of the anti-drunk driving campaign was to encourage TV show producers to weave drunk driving prevention messages and designated driver references into popular TV program storylines, such as Cheers, L.A. Law, and The Cosby Show. While often so subtle that the viewer may not even know that these storylines were crafted to have their intended effect, they demonstrated the power of the entertainment industry to change attitudes and social norms. In fact, this tactic of engaging Hollywood in addressing serious social problems led to the formation of the Entertainment Industries Council (EIC) in 1983. The EIC combined high-profile film, television and recording stars doing PSAs with positive depiction efforts and worked with producers, writers and directors to incorporate social messages into entertainment programming.


PSAs Promoting Religion
PSAs have been used to promote a variety of relgious issues, ranging from the Catholic Communication Campaign designed to promote family values; http://www.usccb.org/ccc/psa/ the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, aimed at reducing child poverty; www.usccb.org/cchd/ the long-running Homefront campaign sponsored by the Mormon Church http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/700831/posts and campaigns to influence the public in different ways sponsored by the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and Scientology churches.

PSAs and Recruiting
Another way PSAs were used in contemporary times was to recruit various target audiences as volunteers. From the time it was formed in the Kennedy Administration, the Peace Corps used PSAs exclusively to recruit young people to help ameliorate poverty around the world.
Our firm had the privilege of working with the Peace Corps for seven years, and during this time we helped them generate 782,000 leads, which in turn resulted in 58,558 applications, 21,456 invitations to join the Peace Corps, and 18,028 Volunteers who actually joined.
While there was an active direct mail program and college recruiting efforts during this time, PSAs contributed to the lion’s share of recruiting leads and proved that PSAs were an effective direct response mechanism.