Cleverly crafted, strategic and creative mass media can be very effective and become cultural. It is overlooked in philanthropic circles and is largely captured by big business. The elite skillsets behind great campaigns is also greatly under appreciated outside the agency world where top talent is sort after and paid a premium.
Having produced many mass media campaigns myself a great many things must align to achieve great results.
The other big problem with mass media campaigns is strategy. Too often organisations focus on the negative which can be valid but they lack aspiration or a clever story to connect with. You can show kids in need and show them suffering or you can craft an aspirational story that shows what donors money can do to make them thrive or an impactful story about how a single child saved from malaria went on to do great things. You can show endless chickens in cages suffering or you can show how much chickens love being outside with some humour to make it land well with a general audience. If the focus is coming from the negative then it needs to be creative and clever like Save Ralph.
Mass media is a blank canvas and just paid time and space what really matters is the creative.
Cleverly crafted, strategic and creative mass media can be very effective and become cultural. It is overlooked in philanthropic circles and is largely captured by big business. The elite skillsets behind great campaigns is also greatly under appreciated outside the agency world where top talent is sort after and paid a premium.
Having produced many mass media campaigns myself a great many things must align to achieve great results.
The other big problem with mass media campaigns is strategy. Too often organisations focus on the negative which can be valid but they lack aspiration or a clever story to connect with. You can show kids in need and show them suffering or you can craft an aspirational story that shows what donors money can do to make them thrive or an impactful story about how a single child saved from malaria went on to do great things. You can show endless chickens in cages suffering or you can show how much chickens love being outside with some humour to make it land well with a general audience. If the focus is coming from the negative then it needs to be creative and clever like Save Ralph.
Mass media is a blank canvas and just paid time and space what really matters is the creative.