Finally a Book on PSAs

One of the more interesting coffee table books about advertising was published by Advertising Age, called Advertising – the First 200 Years in America. If you make it towards the back of this wonderful book, which tells about a force that helped to shape America’s economic landscape, there is a chapter titled: "Causes – Advertising in the Service of the Community." It is disappointing that this important chapter was placed towards the back of the book after 15 previous chapters dedicated to selling goods and services - almost a footnote. Even though this specialty advertising field has been in existence since the Civil War, and is today a billion dollar industry, to our knowledge there has never been a single book dedicated exclusively to the subject. Until now.

While most social historians would agree that America invented advertising – or took it to a new level - it is a university in India which has published the first book solely dedicated to the field, titled: "Public Service Advertising – Some Issues and Campaigns". The editor of this newsletter was asked to contribute an article to the book entitled: "How to Place PSAs in Your Community," and we co-authored a second article with Ken Fischer, Chief Innovation Officer of ClickForHelp.com, entitled: "New Media/New Audiences/New Technologies – Social Media is Changing the PSA Landscape".