Ninon de ’Enclos, the 16th century French author, courtesan, and patron of the arts, was believed to be one of the most seductive women in the history of the world. She allied herself to an array of powerful, wealthy men—including a cousin of Louis XIV and (ironically) to François de La Rochefoucauld, a noted French moralist of the day. However, her lifestyle and her contrary opinions on the Church eventually led to her imprisonment in a Paris convent. Upon her release, Ninon dedicated herself to living a moral life.
The opportunity to create public service announcements (PSAs) is seductive to many ad agencies. PSAs offer creatives the chance to spread their wings and potentially do top-drawer, award-winning work. Two of these spots came to my attention recently. The first proves that even a world-class agency with a good client and a healthy production budget can miss the mark.
The new “What’s Your Type” PSA for longtime BBDO client The American Red Cross with director Charlotte Wells was created to call our attention to the dire need for Americans to donate blood. Statistically, blood donations to the Red Cross have declined more than 40 percent over the past two decades. The spot opens with various “types” of real people (really actors) talking about “your type” in a way that leads the viewer to think this is the preamble to a match.com commercial. Then, with neck-snapping ferocity, the action shifts to people in medical crisis—a man on a stretcher after a critical bike accident and an extremely pregnant woman in the ER. (Note that these people are all double cast; they also appear in the front part of the spot when everything is still hunky dory.) The commercial ends on the woman we saw at the opening, now sitting in a hospital room and hooked up to an IV. Copy on the screen tells us, “Every 2 seconds someone needs blood to survive.”
Research has proven that spots with an unexpected twist are more memorable. But the shift in this spot from the match.com cast to the same people in various medical emergencies feels formulaic. This sudden twist is more off-putting than impactful. Lead me down the garden path if you must, but please don’t bludgeon me unexpectedly on the way—unless you use a Nerf bat. The greater flaw in this spot, though, is that on a human level, “What’s Your Type” does nothing that makes me want to take the needed action: walk to a bloodmobile, roll up my sleeve, and give blood. I know people who have donated their blood to the Red Cross for years. Any one of their stories revealing what keeps them rolling up their sleeves would be far more compelling and motivational than what is admittedly well-produced but essentially a creative showpiece.
Far more successful is the new “Pause to Heal” campaign from the Illinois Ad Council. Gun control is one of the most polarizing issues in America today. The divide is deep between those favoring more stringent controls on gun sales and possession and those championing their First Amendment right to bear arms. What’s brilliant to me about this work is how it reframes the whole issue of gun control around mental health.
Research on this topic reveals some surprising results. A study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions reports that in 2022, more than 48,000 people died by firearms in the United States. That’s one death approximately every eleven minutes. But NAMI, California’s National Alliance on Mental Illness quotes a National Institute of Health report stating that mental illness is a factor in only 4 percent of all violence in the U.S., and its connection to gun violence is even lower. What is relevant for this PSA, going back to the Johns Hopkins report, is that nearly 27,000 people in 2022 died by firearm suicide.
The “product” in the Illinois Ad Council PSA is a firearm restraining order. This order removes a firearm from a person in crisis to give them time to heal. The spot portrays a young man who is clearly suicidal and employs stop-action cinematography to emphasize the underlying theme—that by hitting the “pause” button and temporarily removing the gun from his possession, harm to himself or possibly others was averted.
The dialogue is spare, mostly snippets of a phone conversation between the troubled young man and a woman who could be a girlfriend but is more likely his sister. It’s beautifully shot, with a series of lush, moody images that play like a high-drama feature film. And the performance from the kid is superb. The feeling of relief I got at the end of the spot was palpable. A life was saved. Firearm restraining orders are a good thing.
BBDO creatives: If you really want to get people to give blood, you need to give the project a little more of your own. To the Illinois Ad Council, I tip my hat.
