Public Service Announcement—GCC should look more into PSAs

Public Service Announcement—GCC should look more into PSAs

In a place where communication between government and residents is close to nil, maybe a good old fashioned PSA, revised for economic purposes of course, is just what we need.

August 9, 2011 1:37 by shafeer

There was news today about the Italians using an ad campaign to urge people to pay taxed. Does calling people who evade taxed parasites make them want to cough up cash? Kipp’s not sure but we’re hopeful. After all, if Rebecca Black got a Teen Choice award then anything can happen, right?

This brings us to the effective use of Public Service Announements (PSA). On a rainy day during a trip to China a few years ago, Kipp was relegated to flicking through Chinese TV channels. After just half an hour of channel-flipping, there were about three PSAs that rolled during commercial breaks. One was on hygiene in the kitchen (not using the same knife you used to cut meat for use in cutting vegetables), the other was on being a citizen police and reporting petty crimes, and the last one was on keeping the A/C temperature to an average 25C to save on energy costs.

So Kipp got to thinking, with the Italians using a simple PSA in its last ditch effort to avoid becoming the next victim of Europe’s debt crisis and with China’s efforts to improve community relationships and cost-cutting, the GCC should look into using PSAs to communicate good will among its millions of residents.

Don’t call us crazy just yet. First, imagine how the government could address intercultural miscommunications, encourage community involvement and, more importantly, send a message to people on economic matters. PSAs are worth looking into. Just saying.