The Application of Persuasion Theory to the Development of Effective Proenvironmental Public Service Announcements

The goal of this article is to provide specific guidelines to help create effective proenvironmental public service announcements (PSAs). Campaign designers are encouraged to initially identify and investigate the optimal target audience and then draft and test reactions by samples of that audience using pilot messages. Designers are also advised to consider research on attitude persistence, memory, and social norms and apply this research to the message content and presentation style. The article concludes with an application of research from social psychology to a series of overall guidelines for effective PSAs. The authors suggest that if environmental campaign developers follow these specifications, the chance of PSA success should be enhanced.