Perhaps like never before the bean counters at many non-profit organizations are closely scrutinizing mass communications budgets and reducing "unnecessary" expenses. What many accounting departments and chief financial officers may not recognize is that there is a direct link between an organization's brand image and public willingness to financially support a particular non-profit.

As shown in this famous ad published decades ago by McGraw-Hill, if an important influence (customer, client or donor) doesn't know anything about your service or your organization, it is very difficult to get them to support your cause.

A report published by Mullen, a full-service brand marketing consultancy, put this subject into concise perspective in light of the marketing climate after the events of September 11th:

"In order to help the American public regain comfort and carry on with their lives, Americans will seek greater relevance and meaning from the organizations and brands wishing to earn their loyalty."

So, the first important point we need to establish is we must work hard to maintain and improve our organizational image in an era of downsizing and budget cuts. This means maintaining an aggressive public outreach program to include public service advertising initiatives.

But how do you achieve these seemingly conflicting goals, you ask? The answer may be to recycle.

Over the years, many of our clients have saved tens of thousands of dollars in production money by recycling an existing PSA campaign or an individual component such as a TV PSA. Some of our military clients have recycled the same PSA at least twice, and one of our non-profit clients has recycled a TV PSA three different times. Not only has this technique saved them a significant amount of money, the campaigns performed better in each successive time they were released.

The U.S. Coast Guard "Hero" TV PSA

The Coast Guard is a comparatively small military service that prides itself in getting more done with fewer resources. This is particularly true when it comes to their public service advertising program. For a number of years, the Coast Guard has distributed the same PSA to broadcast TV stations but created new package to keep it refreshed. Given the large turnover of public service directors, most of them would not make the connection between the old and "new" creative, so it is often treated as a completely new release with a huge savings by not having to create a new campaign. For each release, the PSA was distributed to 1,100 broadcast outlets and 25 major cable networks. The PSAs were tracked using the A.C. Nielsen SIGMA electronic monitoring service for 26 weeks for the first release and 39 weeks for the second release.

As shown by the graph below, the value of the second release increased by five percent over the initial release.

The U.S. Marine Corps not only distributes the same PSA over and over again, they also use the same spot in their paid program, labeling it "paid for by the U.S. Marine Corps" to differentiate between paid and PSA. Their PSA values hold up very well year after year.

YFU "Go Global" TV PSA

A more compelling argument for recycling is provided by a campaign we have distributed three different times for the Youth For Understanding International Exchange. YFU is a student exchange organization, which uses TV PSAs to recruit students and adult sponsors for their programs. Their PSA entitled "Go Global" has been distributed to 1,100 broadcast outlets on three different occasions - in 1998, 1999 and in 2000 and usage was monitored for 26 weeks in each case. As the graph above indicates, the second release generated 2% more value than the first release and the third time the PSA was distributed, it generated 30% more value than the initial release.

While some of our clients even use the same external packaging each time they re-distribute the same PSAs, we recommend changing the packaging to give the release a fresh look. Also, in case a station tracks PSAs by title, you may want to change the title when you redistribute so it will be tracked under a different title. Fortunately, there are two realities of the broadcast public service environment which work in favor of recycling TV PSAs. There is an extremely high turnover in public service directors at most broadcast stations and most stations don't take time to check their PSA logs to see what was used previously.

Another way to stretch scarce resources is to find new media outlets for video footage you have already shot and paid for. On every film production, much more perfectly good film or tape goes unused that can possibly be re-edited for another release, saving the cost of shooting new footage. Also, if you have tape or film that was used for another project, i.e. a commemorative event, think about editing it down to a shorter piece and distributing it to either broadcast or cable TV. For the Social Security Administration, we took a half-hour video tape and distributed it to cable stations and generated a substantial amount of new value from the release. Another client produced a half-hour program that aired as a paid show on broadcast TV. We distributed the half-hour program (two different versions) to cable systems and generated $4.4 million in exposure from cable usage.

The one cost factor you need to consider when thinking about recycling PSAs is the talent payment. You need to ensure that you have arranged for the talent buy-out to cover the period when your PSA is in circulation. So, the next time your boss or your organization's financial manager calls you into the office to discuss budget cuts, think recycling. By far the biggest cost of distributing a PSA is the production cost, which you can save by reusing a PSA in your inventory, or think about using existing footage in an imaginative way.