Taiwan Today

In October 1990, popular Taiwan singer Hsueh Yueh contacted the John Tung Foundation, a nonprofit antismoking organization, to pro­pose producing a public service an­nouncement (PSA). The singer was suffer­ing from terminal cancer and wanted to remind fans of the importance of caring for their health. He offered to star in the commercial free of charge. The founda­tion agreed and, after soliciting support from IBM Taiwan to finance the film, pro­duced a one-minute PSA that aired on the three local television stations.

Hsueh's heartfelt appeal to the public drew such an enthusiastic response that the Tung Foundation was prompted to produce a series of similar health-related PSAs. In December 1990, it presented a TV spot urging people not to use ampheta­mines, and in 1991 produced several commercials discouraging teenagers from smoking. The foundation's most ambi­tious antismoking film, produced last June, starred Minister of the Interior Wu Poh-hsiung, movie star Sun Yueh, and TV actor Chen Shu-li. The well-known threesome teamed up to target teenagers by making a pun on the Chinese name for the Tung Foundation, which sounds similar to the Mandarin term for "being sensible."

In recent years, other social institu­tions have tried their hand at promoting their cause through PSAs. The Childhood Burn Foundation of the ROC has been one of the most active. In 1989, the foun­dation produced a film on bum prevention for children. Since then, it has created three additional films on burn treatment and first aid for burn victims. Are such commercials effective? Those at the Tung Foundation say yes. The antismoking announcements, for instance, have contrib­uted to an overall public awareness that smoking and passive inhalation are bad for the health. Beginning in the late 1980s, government agencies and private enterprises have gradually begun forbid­ ding smoking in their offices.

Meanwhile, the Childhood Burn Foundation reports that its PSAs not only spread important safety information, but also have helped to increase donations, enabling it to provide financial assistance to the families of burned children. The ROC Blood Donation Association has also seen positive results from the TV spots it produced in 1990 and 1992 stress­ing the spiritual rewards of helping others by donating blood. Officials at the asso­ciation say that the commercials have helped reduce blood shortages.

These days, nonprofit organizations are not the only groups producing commercials with a social conscience. A growing number of government agencies have also begun creating PSAs promoting increased awareness of public issues such as protecting intellectual property rights, good driving habits, and even marketing strategies for farmers. Private companies have also discovered that such announce­ments are worthwhile as public relations tools. King Car Industrial Food Co. Ltd. in Taipei, for example, has promoted the protection of wild birds through its adver­tisements for one of its drink products, Mr. Brown Coffee. Su En-min (蘇恩民), direc­tor of the company's business planning de­partment, says the idea came from a belief that "commercial advertisements should not only promote the sale of products but also fulfill some social responsibility."

Nonprofit groups are finding that pri­vate companies are also becoming more willing to fund PSAs in return for some publicity as a sponsor. Fubon Cultural and Educational Foundation, created by the Fubon Group, sponsored an antismoking announcement for the Tung Foundation in addition to creating its own series of four, one-hour TV specials focused on helping adolescents keep out of trouble. The programs aired in 1991 and 1992.

Television stations, newspapers, and magazines have adopted a policy of run­ning PSAs free of charge, although there are no regulations setting aside any spe­cific amount of time or space for them. To place such an announcement on the air, producers must first take the work to the Government Information Office to certify that it has no commercial intent. The film is then presented to the three TV stations and, if the programming directors accept it, they schedule a time for free broadcast. One disadvantage to this system is that producers have no control over when their announcement is aired; they complain that PSAs are often run in inopportune time slots. But if they want to run their ad at prime time, they must pay regular com­mercial rates.

A number of talented people are now offering their skills for good causes. Ce­lebrities have discovered that making a PSA is both rewarding and good for public relations. For instance, Hong Kong's kung fu superstar Cheng Lung, a.k.a. Jackie Chan, appeared free of charge in a 1992 blood donation film. The spot was named best public service announcement in the 1992 Times Advertising Award.

A growing number of professional advertising producers have recently ex­panded into PSAs. One such producer is Nancy Wang (王念慈). Wang spent twelve years working as copywriter for several leading local ad agencies, includ­ing United Advertising Co., Ogilvy & Mather (Taiwan), and McCann-Erickson Taiwan. She then took two years off, be­ginning in 1987, to get a graduate degree in television and film from UCLA. Wang focused her studies on documentaries. Af­ter returning to Taiwan in 1990, she found a medium wherein she could combine el­ements of documentary films and adver­tising—public service announcements.

With a US$110,000 loan, she set up She Creative Shop in Taipei. "At first, I also accepted some commercial business to help finance my shop," Wang says. "But I habitually placed these ads as a sec­ond priority, and the quality was inevita­bly affected. So, I decided to abandon commercial ads."

Over the past two years, Wang has produced commercials on recycling, public safety, anti-smoking, and blood dona­tion, in addition to a series of TV programs on adolescent problems. She is now working on a film sponsored by the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation designed to teach teenaged girls to protect themselves from rape and abuse. In recognition of her achievements in the field of public service announcements, Wang was named one of the 1992 Ten Outstanding Female Youths in the ROC.

With the influx of talented producers and the growing availability of funding and media access, the quality and effec­tiveness of PSAs have improved dramati­cally in recent years. Nancy Wang stresses that if they are to be effective, the clips must at least match the standards of big-budget commercial ads She encour­ages sponsors to treat PSAs as they would any other ad; after all, the goal is to move an audience to think or act differently. "When the Blood Donation Association first came to me, they offered only NT$100,000 [US$4,000] for the production of a film," Wang says. "I told them that with such a small budget, we could only produce a dull, low-quality film that would have a lim­ited impact on viewers. They raised the budget to NT$500,000 [US$20,000]." She encour­ages more sponsors of PSAs to adopt this philosophy. "A public service announce­ment has to compete with commercial ad­vertisements," she says.

Professional producers have also in­troduced the concept of an ad campaign, in which the commercial is reinforced by the distribution of printed materials, press conferences, public events, and other pro­motional activities. For example, when Eastern Advertising Co. produced its most recent film on burn prevention last winter, the agency solicited cooperation with McDonald's restaurants. In a joint promotion, the fast-food chain distributed pamphlets on burn prevention at its checkout counters.

PSA producers are also using market research to assess the impact of their work, just as commercial producers do. Wang regularly calls together focus groups to help fine-tune the content and tone of her videos. For example, in the se­ries of television programs on overcom­ing adolescent problems, she used a group of young teens to judge various versions of the scripts. The feedback she received from these youths helped shape the final content of the shows. After another survey of audiences watching antismoking com­mercials, the Tung Foundation decided to aim one of its recent campaigns at prevent­ing teenagers from taking up smoking, rather than attempting the much more dif­ficult task of convincing smokers to quit.

There is one major difference be­tween PSAs and commercial advertisements, Wang stresses. "The primary attribute of a pub­lic service announcement is sincerity," she says. "Producers must be deeply involved in the cause of the advertisement. Therefore, they often becomes active members of the campaign. In order to produce the commercial for protecting teenaged girls, I have joined the staff of the Taipei Women's Rescue Founda­tion to visit various parts of the island."

At the same time, Wang warns pro­ducers to avoid the common pitfall of resorting to melodrama and sensationalism to make a point. If a message is overdone, it rings false. "Many novice producers tend to use strong images such as blood or hospital emergency rooms," she says. "The effect is not good."

Asked which film she considers her best, Wang names the TV commercial pro­duced in memory of the victims of the Chienkang kindergarten incident. Last May, twenty-five kindergarten students burned to death when a school bus caught fire and the emergency doors could not be opened. The bus company had violated several safety regulations. The video, sponsored by the parents of the victims, delivers a strong message about what can happen when safety regulations are bro­ken or unenforced. The film shows a sin­gle image—a picture of the burned-out bus—accompanied only by a single voice describing the tragedy. There is no need to add grisly scenes or sounds in order to get the message across. Says Wang, "The si­lent picture had a strong impact on audi­ences."

An understated, rational approach is often most effective, according to Wang. Her blood donation commercials, for in­stance, promote the idea that donating blood is spiritually rewarding and is bene­ficial to society, but they refrain from trum­peting the act as noble. At Eastern Advertising, deputy manager Chen Chien-chou (陳建舟) says that the company's PSAs on burn prevention have also adopted a less emotional, more rational tone since they began production.

Although PSAs generally bring pro­ducers little or no money, more compa­nies are willing to do such work simply because it is satisfying in other ways. "Al­though there are few material returns, the spiritual rewards are ample," Wang says. "When you learn of enthusiastic response to your work, or that the Blood Donation Association no longer suffers from a shortage of blood, or that a lost child has been found, the joy is beyond descrip­tion." —Philip Liu (劉柏登) is editor-in­-chief of Business Taiwan, a weekly newspaper published in Taipei.