Espousing social causes
through advertisements is a
difficult task, as the target audience is expected to rise
above personal benefits/needs and look at the larger societal or
national interests. Moreover, some preconceived notions and
beliefs might also be questioned. Unless executed with creative ideas,
Public Service Advertisements (PSA) may not catch the attention of the
target audience, as the target audience is already overexposed
to advertisements.
One way to improve the effectiveness of PSAs is to rope
in celebrities. Having familiar and famous faces in the ads will make
it easy to draw the attention of the audience. Fans and well-wishers
of the celebrity take cognizance of the cause being promoted. If
the advertisement is also well-executed by creative ideas
then more people stand to get influenced by it. In the Indian context,
many celebrities from diverse fields such as films, sports and creative
arts have associated themselves with several social causes such
as immunization programs, education, vegetarianism, paying
of income tax, etc.
Clutter is a major problem for today's advertisers. People are exposed
to hundreds of commercial messages everyday through different media.
Be it indoor mass media such as radio, TV, newspapers and magazines or
outdoor media such as hoardings, mobile vehicles, bus stands, railway
stations, airports, ATM machines, etc. the common man is inundated
with innumerable commercial messages. Even personal devices like
mobile handsets and computers are leveraged by advertisers to send
brand-related messages through SMS and online advertising respectively. No
wonder, given this overdose of advertising, people have become averse
and insensitive to commercial messages.
Appealing to the emotions of the viewers through humor
and special effects are some of the ways being adopted by advertisers
to attract the people. Another effective method is to have
the brand endorsed by celebrities, whose presence makes the target
audience pay attention and not avoid the advertisement. This
generates higher exposure levels, that otherwise is not always possible.
Be it FMCGs or durables, most of the brands have
day-to-day applications for people. Hence, there is a
natural inclination to know the benefits of using a product/service. |
