Here's looking at you, kid

If they ever build a TV commercial Hall of Fame there will surely be a space reserved for Iron Eyes Cody. Cody - you may remember him as the "Crying Indian" - was the "star" of the long-running public service announcement for Keep America Beautiful, Inc. (KAB) that ran on TV stations across the country during the 70s and 80s. Few who saw the commercial could forget its image of a single tear crawling down Cody's face as he reacted to the actions of litterbugs.

Effective though the spot was, it became outdated as the larger issue of waste management eclipsed littering in the public consciousness as the nation's top garbage-related problem. When Keep America Beautiful - a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving waste handling practices in American communities - set to developing a new PSA to address the problem of waste management, it had to answer the question: How do you duplicate the impact of the "Crying Indian" spot?

With the help of research, KAB and the Stamford, Conn.-based ad agency Rotando, Lerch & Iafeliece developed a spot that just might do that. (All of the those who worked on the spot, including Pytka Productions and Rotando, Lerch & Iafeliece Advertising, donated their time and talents.)

Surrounded by garbage

The central image of the new KAB spot, which was sent to 1100 broadcast and cable outlets in January, is a shot of a baby surrounded by mounds of garbage. The commercial begins with a close-up of the baby and pulls back to a wide shot as actor Michael Douglas narrates over the strains of "America The Beautiful:" "For future generations, our country is leaving behind our knowledge, our technologies, our values...and 190 million tons of garbage every year. Recycling alone just can't do it. Keep America Beautiful is an organization that can do something. We have solutions that have worked in cities and towns across the country. What can you do? More than you think!" Viewers are then invited to contact KAB for a free booklet. One version asks them to write to the address on the screen, the other flashes a toll-free number.

Broad appeal

In one-on-one interviews with consumers to test the ad concept KAB found that the image had broad appeal, says Jeff Francis, director of communications, Keep America Beautiful. "We showed them a tape of the idea and then talked about it. We found that the baby appealed to everyone. It was an image that, no matter what your age, your sex, if you have children or not, no matter what category you fall into, there was an emotional attachment to that child; which was good because we wanted this ad to be very broad based and hit as many constituency groups as possible. The interviews helped make up our minds about using the baby and the fact that it did appeal to everybody."

The interviews lasted about 30 minutes and included discussion of the ad concept and the issue of waste management. Since the ad was targeted at a broad cross section of people, the respondents came from a variety of backgrounds.

Research worth it?

Francis says that from the start KAB considered doing some kind of qualitative research but the organization wasn't sure if it would be worth the investment. "It's a little bit expensive for the campaign we were doing but then we decided that it was very important. It's one of the best things that we did. It really gave us a lot of information that helped us get the right message for the PSA. I sat through all of them and so did the president of our organization. We learned a lot of information that we can take beyond the PSA. We're hoping that at some point we can do research just for our own marketing and communications because we learn so much about what consumers are thinking."

Grant MacDonald, senior vice president, director of strategic planning, at Rotando, Lerch & Iafeliece, says the research informed the development process and helped define the substrategies of the spot.

"We did a lot of talking to consumers and prospects even before we got close to advertising to see what strategy we were after, what direction we wanted to go and how we could be compelling. We also talked to KAB reps around the country to find out what the hot buttons were and what the barriers were that they confront in the marketplace.

We used that information to set up a strategy that talked about people's complacency. In order to get people to act we're going to have to confront them on a very emotional level and we set up a strategy that says that what you do today will affect future generations. That was the message we wanted to get across."

Call to action

The spot is designed to function as a kind of call to action. In order to get them to take action, the respondents said that the ad had to offer something concrete. "We found through the research that a majority of people wanted to know what they were going to get if they were going to contact us," Francis says. "They really wanted something tangible. They wanted to know more than just 'more information'--that wasn't good enough, which is why we ask them to call or write for the free brochure. People want to take action, but at their own pace. Particularly at the outset, they don't want to get a call soliciting them for funds or donated time for a non-profit organization. They don't want to make that big of a commitment right away."

"We wanted to challenge people," says Grant MacDonald, "to ask them if they were going to do something. Looking at the baby campaign, people said, well I'm doing something already but maybe there's more I can do. It made them question their actions a little bit more, and that was the agitation we were looking for."

Some hope

The research showed that the ad had to walk a fine line between being realistic about the scope of the problem and offering some ray of hope. If viewers felt helpless in the face of the problem, they could end up depressed and tune the message out, Francis says. "The whole tone of the ad was influenced by the research in the fact that the ad begins with a very powerful message which is actually a bit of a downer and then it ends with a hopeful message that there is a solution and you can be a part of it. That in large part was something that we always wanted to do but it was very much backed up by what the consumers said. Because if they felt that the problem was intractable then their typical response is, well, what can I do about it?

"There are a lot of PSAs being done on a lot of social ills, and we got statements in the research to the effect that a lot of people feel that these ills are so large that there's nothing they can personally do about them. That's one reason why in our ad we made a big pitch for personal involvement. Someone can make a difference. And that gets people motivated to want to get involved, because if there's no hope, then what can one individual watching the ad think that they can do? That was something very big that came out of that research. And it was definitely translated into the advertising."

Viewer complacency

The ad would also have to confront viewer complacency in relation to the waste management issue, caused in part by the success of local recycling efforts around the country. Some respondents said that because of these efforts the problem was under control.

"One thing we found that was very interesting was that because a majority of towns have recycling programs, people felt nothing more needed to be done to deal with the growing amount of garbage that we have every year. They felt that somebody else is taking care of it, 'We're recycling. What more can we do?' In the ad Michael Douglas says, 'Recycling alone just can't do it.' That line was in there as a response to what we heard from those respondents in the interviews," Francis says.

Testing 800 number

KAB is also testing the effectiveness of an 800 number through a ten state test of a version of the spot that asks viewers to call rather than write for the free booklet. Again, Francis says, the research helped KAB decide that an 800 number was worth a try.

"I think most people will tell you that of course when you have an 800 number you get more response than if you have a 'write to.' We want to make sure that that is the case, particularly if we're going to spend the money on an 800 number because they can become quite expensive. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to respond to this ad.

"In the research, some people said they won't write. They would write if they had to, if they weren't given any other choice, but they liked the idea of the 800 number. That helped us because at the time we hadn't planned to do an 800 number and that helped us to decide to at least test one."

Lasting place

Response to the ad will be measured through calls to the 800 number or requests for the booklet. Its long term success remains to be seen. Only time will tell if "The Baby" is able to join Iron Eyes Cody in the TV Hall of Fame and earn a lasting place in the viewing public's memory.

"The ad is targeted at all adult Americans, which for advertising is quite a large target market. But we felt that to get the most bang out of what we were putting into this PSA we needed to at least pursue that. And we found through the research that it did in fact communicate to a large group of people. It appealed to everybody, and the main component that appealed to everybody was the baby," Francis says.

Grant MacDonald: "Part of our mission was to see what we could do to replace the Crying Indian. He was an icon. At the outset, we asked ourselves what other icon can we get long term? Well, I think we've found one that's pretty good."