The Impact of a PSA

Why PSAs Are So Important

PSAs are particularly important in society because they are catered to the public interest. Whether the goal is to change attitude, raise awareness, or change social behavior, there is no doubt that PSAs have and continue to make a huge impact on our society. For example, when the FCC required there be television commercials shedding light on how smoking negatively affects our health and the hazards associated with it, smoking rates began to decline for the very first time.

Ad Council

Ad Council is a non profit organization that puts out and promotes a variety of PSAs. There is a campaign that would interest everyone.

While the list could go on forever, some topics that initially caught my eye include:

• U.S. Foster Care Systems

• Alzheimer's Disease Prevalence in America

• Shelter Pet Adoption

All of these PSAs and others shed light on situations that so many individuals in our community face, but these specifically are close to my heart. I have a personal connection to each of these as someone with a friend

Photos from Ad Council

who went through the foster care system, a grandmother who is battling Alzheimer's, and a cat who I adopted from a shelter. There is a community of people experiencing the

Photo Creds: Ad Council

same things as you are, and PSAs are crucial in allowing people to find their community, and how to take action.

Putting These Strategies to Use

Something that all PSAs should have in common is a call-to-action. They should motivate the viewers to do something about the issue at hand, as well as steps on how to do so. In a future career, I could take this call-to-action strategy and apply it in a business setting. In an advertisement, I could include reasons why customers should buy a certain product or shop at a certain store. Another thing I could implement in future careers that PSAs tend to do a good job of doing is catering to people’s emotions. Whether it is dramatization in a PSA, or simply utilizing pathos in another way, appealing to peoples’ emotions is always powerful. This could be and is done often in a business setting.

Make a Difference

As previously mentioned, PSAs have been extremely successful in the past at motivating people to make a change. It is a powerful thing to be able to find ways to make the changes that you want to see in society, and PSAs make it simple.