Common Sense: Saving Energy

The Ad Council and the U.S. Department of Energy recently teamed up to produce a new PSA campaign teaching Americans how to improve energy efficiency and cut down on waste in their homes.  A few of the proposed tips are pretty basic but great for young adults when they are ready to leave their parent’s home and start paying their own bills. Two tips I found particularly useful were shutting the fireplace flu and setting the water heater to 120, which could easily be overlooked.

This ad is the perfect length. It’s just long enough to state their information, but short enough that I’ll stick around to watch it in its entirety. The call to action sends you to energysaver.gov, where you can find more tips, such as property sealing your home against drafts, using landscaping to lower energy bills, planning a new home with renewable energy systems, and estimating appliance energy usage.  The green and gray tones used in the video follow through to the website design. This cohesion creates a strong brand and makes me trust that what they are saying will help me save money.

GSD&M was the agency that took on the project pro bono, like almost all Ad Council campaigns. It has become a point of pride for agencies to just have the honor of making creative for the Ad Council. A compilation of Ad Council PSA work can be found on the Ad Council's website. The Ad Council has produced numerous advertising campaigns that are widely recognized by Americans since their inspection in 1942. A few notables are Smokey Bear’s Wildfire Prevention, Crime Prevention with McGruff the Crime Dog, Drunk Driving Prevention, Safety Belt Education and AIDS Prevention. These commercials raise awareness on topics that might otherwise get overlooked. Energy preservation may not be the most earth-shattering topic, but having a greener planet is important for all of us. And if we can save a few bucks in the process, why wouldn’t we help out?