ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Making public sector advertising work is a tall order. There’s no simple formula as it can often require the communication of contradictory messages and requires the correct balance of fact with fear.

Essentially it’s about making people’s lives better (and often saving lives), a noble cause which most creatives would love to work on. But how many get it right, and how has public sector communication evolved?

*History *

Adverts from the 1940s + were much tamer than the graphic highly emotive ads we see today. I’ve used Drink Driving ads as an example.

Today we are hit with a much stronger Think! message than ‘Mind how you go!’

New opportunities

It’s crucial to be resourceful when considering the end product – any public sector communication can’t be seen as being wasteful. This is where Social Media is presenting new opportunities. It provides the opportunity to engage the public through more cost effective campaigns, often tailored to the audience

Changing behaviour is a long term process and can not be achieved through one-off bill board advertisements. Take the Keep Britain Tidy campaign for instance. Personally, I was not convinced by impact of the bill board ad.

It’s missing the emotion and ‘fear’ element and doesn’t get across the consequences of dropping litter from your car – are there safety issues? What if a bike where to hit a floating bag and get it caught on their helmet? Or run over an empty can? It’s that level of message that would motivate me to report any instance of car litter (but people are motivated by different things of course, which is one of the main challenges when working on this type of campaign).

What is impressive is the campaign’s use of social media. You can follow the success of the campaign on Twitter. They regularly update followers on how the campaign is going and remind you of the campaign and what is expected of us.

Another example of the use of the internet is the shocking video recently posted by Gwent Police. The video is a graphic, painful film of a devastating car crash, filmed to warn teenagers of the dangers of texting while driving. This is not for the faint hearted.

The film has been a phenomenal success around the world – Gwent police believe the clip has been viewed at least 6 million times and has appeared on at least 17 sites.

This just highlights the value of shock tactics where serious issues like this are concerned, and the power of the internet to convey these messages.