Sending Messages

By GREG JOHNSON

Aug. 27, 1998 12 AM PT

Smokey Bear and hapless crash test dummies Larry and Vince are finding new employment opportunities on the Internet.

Familiar public service icons such as McGruff the Crime Dog, which were developed for television, radio and print campaigns, are going online as Web sites like Playboy.com and Nickelodeon.com set aside advertising space to promote nonprofit causes.

“The online audience is really receptive to” public service announcements, said Advertising Council spokeswoman Adrianne Maher. “Our expectation is that the Internet will allow us to reach an audience that we can’t reach through traditional media.”

Cause-oriented organizations, easily identified online by their distinctive “.org” addresses, were early believers in the Internet’s ability to quickly disseminate information. Now, nonprofit organizations hope to use online public service announcements placed on for-profit Web sites to carry their messages.

Online PSAs generally take the form of advertising banners that deliver a brief message before offering to link visitors to a nonprofit organization’s home page. The New York-based Ad Council is creating online advertising for many of its 35 affiliated nonprofit causes.

More Online Firms Adopt PSAs

Electronic ads got a significant boost in November when the New York-based Internet Advertising Bureau trade group directed its more than 200 members to set aside 5% of their advertising space inventory for PSAs. Although online monitoring of PSAs is sketchy, the Ad Council reports that PSAs now generate more than 20 million “consumer impressions” each month.

That sounds like a big number, but observers note that there’s still plenty of room for growth. CNN’s popular Web site, for example, drew 20 million hits on the day President Clinton acknowledged an improper relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

And even though the Internet Advertising Bureau expects paid online advertising to hit $1 billion during 1998, online ads now account for less than 1% of the estimated $200 billion companies spend on advertising of all types.

Observers also say it’s relatively painless for many online companies to run PSAs because so few online businesses have sold all of their available ad space. It remains to be seen, experts say, whether cash-hungry Web sites will continue to incorporate PSAs as their ad volume grows.

There are sound reasons, though, for online businesses to continue making space for PSAs.

“Online PSAs are part of the effort to put this new medium on a level playing field with established media,” said John Mracek, vice president of marketing for AdKnowledge, a Palo Alto-based company that tracks online advertising. ‘It’s one more way for online businesses to show that they’re a serious contender for advertising dollars.”

Technology has changed dramatically since 1942, when the Ad Council generated memorable campaigns such as Rosie the Riveter to promote national unity during World War II. The Ad Council’s first efforts included war bond sales, the planting of victory gardens and the entry of women into the work force.

The Ad Council has long relied upon volunteer efforts from well-known firms such as Bates USA and Saatchi & Saatchi to create its multimedia campaigns. The Ad Council then seeks donated air time or space in print media to run the ads.

The Ad Council says it generated $1 billion in donated media time--including an estimated $5 million worth of online space--last year for 35 ad campaigns ranging from domestic violence to education. Critics have questioned the effectiveness of PSAs, because many run late at night on television or are lost among glitzy print ads pitching everything from automobiles to soft drinks.

The Ad Council incorporates online PSAs in a new-media category that runs the gamut from messages shown on automated teller machines in Las Vegas casinos and airport monitors to signs at baseball parks and free videos distributed by chains such as Blockbuster.

To help speed the use of online PSAs, the Internet Advertising Bureau and Ad Council have contracted with NetGravity, a San Mateo-based advertising management firm, to make banner ads available and track usage. The Ad Council also redesigned its own home page to make it easier for for-profit companies to download PSAs.

Executives at nonprofit organizations don’t expect online PSAs to replace ads in existing media. But they believe the Internet’s rifle-shot approach will blend in well with the shotgun-like style of traditional media.

The first online PSAs began to pop up in 1993, Maher said, when groups like Washington-based Earth Share ventured online. Earth Share’s initial PSA, which appeared on the Prodigy online service, generated $55,000 in pledges and 66,000 requests for free posters.

Web Site Replaces Toll-Free Line

Earth Share now counts its Web page as its primary tool for responding to consumer inquiries. The nonprofit environmental group recently dropped a toll-free 800 line that cost $100,000 a year to operate.

“It’s an enormously effective way to distribute information,” Earth Share President Kalman Stein said. “That’s the beauty of the Internet. . . . It doesn’t matter how many calls you get because it doesn’t cost anything in terms of variable costs.”

The National Fatherhood Initiative accidentally discovered the power of the Internet early in 1996 when the Alta Vista online search engine company unexpectedly created a banner ad for the Washington-based organization that promotes responsible parenting.

“Our Web site was perking along with maybe 50 to 100 hits per day, when, all of a sudden, it jumped up to 10,000 hits,” National Fatherhood Initiative President Wade Horne said. “We couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on.”

Horne tied the dramatic increase in hits to the fact that relatively few organizations were being advertised online, and the number of hits steadily dropped as more nonprofit groups took to the Internet. “Now, when our banner is running somewhere, we jump up to 1,000 or 1,500 hits,” Horne said. “And when it’s not running we fall back down to about 100 or 150.”

New Media, Old Problems

Executives at nonprofit organizations using the Internet to attract new members are finding that online ads share many of the same snags found in other media--ranging from financial pledges that fall through to dealing with schoolchildren in search of material for homework assignments. And when Internet visitors don’t log in, Web site hosts can’t tell if their message is getting through.

“If all they do is click on your site, read the message and say, ‘Yeah, I agree with that [cause],’ and move on, then you risk becoming the equivalent of a Hallmark card,” Horne said. “You need to find some way to get them to interact.”

Earth Share decided to drop its 800 phone number because its target audience--highly educated and likely to use computers--will naturally move online. But Stein cautions that agencies that move entirely onto the Internet risk “disenfranchising people who don’t have Internet access. You have to be very careful that the Internet is reaching the [demographic groups] you want to talk to.”

Rather than relying solely upon the largess of for-profit Web sites, Earth Share is lobbying for space on Web sites with groups and companies like the U.S. Golf Assn., in which members are likely to be in tune with the environmental group’s message. Earth Share also might purchase space on selected Web sites to publicize a fall fund drive.

Not surprisingly, many of the same advertising principles that govern success in other media are equally important online. “The most effective PSAs are those that generate curiosity,” Horne said. “You might not know where the online banner is going to take you, but it gets your attention.”

The National Fatherhood Initiative’s most successful banner shows a single sperm in a petri dish with the tag line, “What it takes to be a father.” Visitors are invited to visit the Fatherhood site, which is filled with information about “what it takes to be a dad.”

And, as anyone who’s operated a Web site learns, online consumers are more demanding than those corresponding by mail or telephone. “With mail, you at least get Sunday off, and with an 800 number, you get the weekend,” Horne said. “But the Internet is active 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

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Banner Event

Online public service announcements (PSAs) appear on for-profit Web pages operated by nearly 300 companies. The Advertising Council is in the process of creating electronic PSAs for more than 30 different nonprofit organizations.

Some companies that use ad space for PSAs

* GeoCities (online home page provider)

* La Musica (Latin music site)

* Microsoft Network

* Pathfinder (Time Warner’s Web site)

* Playboy (adult site)

* ESPN (sports site)

* Yahoo (search engine)

* Ziff Davis (Internet magazines)

Some PSA campaigns in use (along with sponsoring organization’s Web site)

* Buy Recycled (https://www.edf.org)

* Crime Prevention (https://www.weprevent.org)