Reaching the Outside World

Public Service Announcements

A Teams to End Poverty public service advertisement featuring UNDP Goodwill Ambassador Maria Sharapova
with NBA basketball star LeBron James. The PSAs feature celebrities from the world of sports, arts, fashion or
business who are portrayed in teams of two by some
of the world's greatest professional photographers.
All of them donated their time and talent for the cause.
The London-based Leagas Delaney advertising agency created the ads available in English, French and
Spanish, and have agreed to work for the campaign
free of charge for 10 years.

Public service announcements, or PSAs, are the public-sector equivalent of commercial advertising. They use short, catchy slogans and vibrant graphics to hammer home a chosen public-interest theme. PSAs can highlight an urgent issue and/or call for a specific action, such as environmental conservation or the importance of voting. Corporate PSAs can raise the public profile of UNDP by reminding people of the organization’s essential role in global and national development.

PSAs have multiple formats—including television and radio, print media, billboards, posters and flyers. Which format(s) you use will depend on your objectives and target audiences.

Good PSAs boil a lot of information down to a single, creative message that captures attention through one or more elements: it is newsworthy, unusual, controversial, humorous or makes an emotional connection linked to common human concerns. You should be able to understand a PSA simply by glancing at it—even if it includes text explaining the theme in more detail. If you develop a series of PSAs on the same issue but across multiple formats, they should be clearly linked by a common tagline and visual elements.

If you use a spokesperson for a PSA, choose someone who is memorable and credible. Spokespersons can provide arresting testimony by talking about their own experiences, such as in being the victim of a disaster. They may be able to inspire trust based on their expertise—for example, a doctor delivering a health message. They can be a role model for actions and consequences. A combatant who has put down his gun after losing members of his own family would throw disarmament into stark relief. Celebrities, who enjoy a high profile, may also be effective choices for PSAs—particularly if they exemplify support for the issue in their personal lives.

For more on PSAs, see Ten Tips: How to make News with Public Interest Advertising from Fenton Communications and Public Service Annnouncements: How Can We Make Them Effective? from the University of Toronto.

For Best Practice video PSAs, see the anti-corruption PSA from the UNDP Regional Centre in Bangkok, and Kick Out Poverty with Goodwill Ambassadors Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane.

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