Thank God for research....I am finally finding sources that are rekindling my passion for my research on environmental PSAs in their effectiveness. I found this article published by the health center from the University of Toronto. It analyzes the effectiveness of PSAs as a whole and draws down the criteria of an effective PSA and the principles we should use to analyze them. Here is the summary of the criteria of effective PSA according to Dr Charles Atkins, do you think the PSAs we are using for the environmental campaigns follow them? And these are just and on point principles, at least according to my logic.
Here goes:
In order to be effective, a public service announcement (PSA) must
1. have a clear and realistic objective;
2. be designed for, and tested with a specific focus audience;
3. have a number of qualitative features including:
a. an appropriate type of appeal;
b. an appropriate messenger;
c. credibility;
d. understandability;
e. relevance;
f. high quality mechanical construction;
g. high quality creative execution.
4. be distributed using channels and vehicles that are suitable for the focus audience and the chosen
objective.
5. be distributed in substantial quantity/with substantial frequency to ensure that the focus audience
is adequately exposed to the message.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)

Excellent finding! You can now use this list as a guiding point for questions you use in your surveys and interviews! For example, you can show a PSA, and then ask someone "Do you think the messenger in this PSA is credible?"
ReplyDelete