# 5605
Finding the right content, and tone, to deliver in a TV or radio PSA (public service announcement) during a global crisis like a pandemic has been the subject of much debate over the past few years.
Crisis communicators want the public to take a threat seriously, but they don’t want to push too hard, for fear alienating a portion of the public who may choose to tune out an overly ominous warning.
During the comparatively mild pandemic of 2009, PSAs were fairly low-key. Designed to inform, but not inflame the public.
In the UK, the fairly innocuous CATCH IT. BIN IT. KILL IT. was selected as being the appropriate response to a comparatively mild threat.
In the United States, the HHS even solicited PSA submissions from the public, resulting in many clever submissions and with the winner of the competition being Dr. John Clarke and his H1N1 Rap.
You can view the top 10 entries in my blog Vote For Your Favorite PSA.
In 2008, a year before the pandemic, I wrote about a PSA (see Reaching For the 2x4) produced by the The Ohio Department of Health that critics called ominous' and `chilling' while the Ohio Department of Health called them `edgy'.
Its one thing to run a `scary’ campaign before a crisis arises, quite another when a threat is imminent.
So the following year, when the H1N1 pandemic began and it was apparent it wasn’t going to be the killer flu that had been feared, the `big guns’ were left holstered.
But public health agencies – in their ongoing preparations for a serious pandemic – continue to work on finding the `right’ message.
The BBC today has convinced (via a Freedom of Information Request) the UK’s DOH to release one of their proposed PSAs – created in 2006 when H5N1 bird flu was on everyone’s radar – that was intended for use during a severe pandemic sometime in the future.
You can read the BBC article, and view the video at:
Pandemic flu advert revealed by Department of Health
This particular PSA eschews the kind of stark imagery shown in the Ohio video above – and uses dominos as a metaphor for an illness sweeping inexorably across the globe.
Still, it manages to convey a menacing tone.
Finding the `right message’ before, during, and after a crisis is a constant struggle. What resonates with one segment of the public may very well turn off another.
The pandemic threat from H5N1, and other novel viruses, has not gone away. While pandemics often occur decades apart, there are no guarantees that another won’t begin this year or next.
So public health agencies will continue to work to fine-tune their messages, looking for the right combination of imagery and advice that will prompt the desired response from the public without arousing unwanted alarm or antipathy.
