Effectiveness of Public Service Announcements

Past research has shown that emotional messages, negative messages, and arousing messages are far more effective than non-emotional messages because these messages involve the audience more, grab the audience’s attention, and are better remembered because of their ability to activate certain motivational systems.

“People are more likely to pay attention to a TV commercial if one of their favorite players is talking, than they would be if the owner of the company was the star” (Miller). It is the association with the known and likeable character which may attract people to follow celebrity endorsements. It may also be the association with success which the athlete is characterizing. Whatever the case may be, Miller gives tips of what marketing companies look for before persuading a player with an endorsement:

Celebrity Endorsement is a form of brand or advertising that involves a well-known individual using their fame to help promote a product or service. The most common business users of products are manufactures of perfumes, and clothing. Some Techniques that are used are for example, television ads and launch event appearances.

This bond that is created between the viewer and a celebrity helps understand the effectiveness that endorsements have where marketers have failed. The celebrity builds character in the eyes of the public and that character carries on into the product he is endorsing, and even though a part of the persuasion has to exist in the product itself, but a celebrity uses his status and the character he has built to gain credibility and likeability among the target audience. This character the celebrity transfers to the product is known as the “meaning “(2). The transfer of the meaning to the product goes through three stages. The first stage is in finding the celebrity with the desired meaning that they want to carry to the product this requires casting from the wide world of celebrity endorsers. The second stage is choosing which celebrity embodies the meaning the marketing campaign requires for the product, this stage is subject to expense restraints and availability. After deciding on an endorser stage three is the most complicated stage as in this step the endorser has to be able to transfer that meaning into the product, they have to make this meaning “available to the consumer in a material form”(2), this stage allows the consumer to accept the meaning they are given and accept the product and you use is a tool to build their own character. These three steps not only

Family references within messages have influenced me by tugging at my heartstrings with stories that are relatable. If a film, television show, or even a commercial for a product or charity uses a narrative that I can identify with through a personal experience, then it almost always seems to have a stronger emotional impact. This form of identification through a relatable narrative can be used as a form of persuasion. Kenneth Burke claims that identification is the simplest form of persuasion in his book, The Rhetoric of Motives. He also states that an audience becomes vulnerable to persuasion once they relate, understand, feel the same as, or share a common experience. This is especially true for me when I can identify with a family reference

A good way to spread awareness of LGMD would be to send representatives to high schools to speak in health classrooms about what LGMDs are and the toll they take on the person with the disease physically, mentally, emotionally.

Use of celebrities in advertising is no new concept, companies have used celebrities to sell everything from cars, to moisturizer. Celebrities, due to our consumerist and media based society, are the ideal salespeople. (Wright, 2015) PETA’s campaign team understands that celebrity can help sell products and put a spin on that marketing technique by using celebrity endorsement in order to sell their ideals, and a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. Celebrity endorsement can help companies and non-profit organizations such as PETA to gain public recognition, and to make a strong impression on viewers and consumers, so that they will remember the product, or in PETA’s case, consumers will remember the ideals and advocacy that the organization is promoting. (Fleck, Korchia, & Le Roy, 2012) It’s also apparent that a celebrities attractiveness has something to do with it as well. Fleck, Korchia, and Le Roy also state that “A celebrity spokesperson's physical attractiveness has a positive impact on brand recall, attitude toward the brand and purchasing intent”

PSAs, or public service announcements, are sent out by government or local institutions to help reduce the number of incidents relating to a certain area. PSAs are often about public safety, covering issues like bicycling protection, anti-drinking and drugs, and car safety. One big issue that is given a lot of attention to by the Department of Transportation, highway safety, and police departments are distracted driving incidents that they believe can be stopped. PSA’s can help reduce the number of distracted driving incidents because if they are presented effectively, they can make the people think about their driving skills and habits, and make them think about it both out of driving, and while driving. However, many people believe that PSAs

Starting a new school year as a tenth grader, I thought there wouldn’t be any big changes but there was, and there is. My classes became slightly more difficult than they were last year, as a freshman. Which made it more challenging to keep up with all the class work, tests, quizzes, and homework. Although, most of the assignments assigned became a bit effortless, of course effort is needed but it’s just so simple to do. All of my classes balance between those two, being challenging at times but also being simple. I, like every other student was enrolled into a World History class. In History class, we were assigned a Public Service Announcement(PSA) just recently.

This is a Public Service Announcement. There is a Tornado headed our way. The Warning will be from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm eastern time. The following Counties will be affected, Allegheny, Beaver, and Washington. Wind Gusts will be up to 65 mph. Please go to a safe area in your home (example, basement, bathroom, somewhere with no windows). You will need to take enough food and water to last you until the Warning is lifted. There is a strong possibility that you will lose power during this Tornado. If you have flashlights, batteries, and a radio please take these with you as well. If hit with the Tornado you could be severely injured by flying objects. Anything with gasoline in them could possibly explode. Medical Teams will have a

Celebrity endorsement is possibly the most successful form of advertising. The fact that a celebrity approves of a product is often enough for people to get on board. Advertisements create a false life or image. Chiat says in his article: “Advertising--including movies, TV, and music videos--presents to us a world that is not our world but rather a collection of images and ideas created for the purpose of selling” (Chiat 212) .There is no better way to sell a false life or idea than to have a celebrity sell it for you.

The concept of using sports stars to market non-sport items has soared to new heights. Every corporation in the world is trying to get the edge over their competitors. The classic example is that of the “Cola Wars.” During the 1980s, Pepsi and Coca Cola began an advertising slugfest, in which Pepsi emerged victorious by using Madonna and Michael Jackson as puppets in their commercials. These two companies, as well as thousands of others, have taken advantage of exposing celebrities in their commercials and advertisements. This is done as a means to persuade the public that these products are worth buying.

Celebrity endorsement is a billion dollar industries today (Kambitsis et al., 2002) with companies signing deals with celebrities hoping that they can help them stand out from the clutter and give them a unique and relevant position in the mind of the consumer. According to Solomon (2002), the reasons for using celebrity endorsement involves its potential to create awareness, positive feelings towards their advertising and brand. Research has shown that celebrity endorsement can have an impact on the consumer’s attention, recall, evaluations and purchase intentions (Atkin and Block, 1993), Celebrity endorsement is a widely used tactic in marketing and much research

Furthermore there are other researches as well which suggest that the approach of using a celebrity to endorse a product can not be viewed as a general practice of using any celebrity for any product endorsement. Pornpitakpan (2003), while discussing match-up hypothesis, describes the results of a study by Erdogen et al (2001) which suggests that "British advertising agency managers considered various criteria like celebrity- target audience match, celebrity-product match, overall image of the celebrity, cost of hiring the celebrity, celebrity trustworthiness, controversy risk, celebrity familiarity, celebrity prior endorsements, celebrity likeability, risk of celebrity overshadowing the brands, celebrity expertise, celebrity profession and celebrity physical attractiveness". A match between the target market and the endorser is important for effectively transmitting right message to target audience. For example, the advertisements which are produced by Pepsi, are mostly targeted for youths and so the celebrity endorsers that they use in their advertisements are young personalities. The match up hypothesis goes true for the multiple celebrity advertising as well. A good example of this is the Pulse Polio campaign taken up in India to eradicate the polio

The central route to persuasion requires high efforts of processing which occurs through a complex structure, thus leads to longer lasting effects of persuasion. However, if an audience is lacking in motivation, in which they are not analytical or involved with the message they are more likely to take the peripheral route to persuasion. In this case, peripheral cues are used in which these cues trigger an acceptance of the messages thus leading to persuasion, which is usually a temporary effect [Myers et al 2016 p190-191].