Commercials?

Mae

Well-known member
Has anybody ever wondered why there aren't any commercials supporting things like car seat usage? ERF, EH or just plain ol' proper use?

I have. I think it would definately help get the word out.
 
ADS

bobandjess99

Senior Community Member
There are, sometimes, in some places. We had a bunch of booster commercials a couple years ago when our state had a booster law passed. We still have the occasional commerical here and there about riding in a carseat until 40 lbs, booster until 4'9", etc. The occasional bit on the news sometimes. I haven't seen anything about best practice though.
 

babyherder

Well-known member
I see a commercial for booster seats frequently in CT. Its the whole 4 ft 9 in thing and shows a smiling girl in a Disney Princess TB. Highback at least. The fairly godmother comes in with her magic wand and waves it and the child is safe cause she's in her booster. Just like magic! Lol. I always thought it was a weird commercial but better than nothing I guess.

I saw a commercial supporting the proper use of latch in PA. Great stress on using a carseat and installing it right. Unfortunately, the child was a young toddler and forward facing, of course.
 

murphydog77

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
I've been hearing a lot of Disney princess PSAs on boosters lately on one particular radio station that my kids listen to--it's the easy listening station that promotes that it plays kid-friendly songs, lol. I see posters with NHTSA's LATCH campaign on bus stops and I've seen the poster someplace else . . . can't remember where. I'm actually quite surprised that I've been seeing/hearing these and I'm not even looking for them :thumbsup:.

Of course, you could design your own PSA http://carseatblog.com/?p=5163 .
 

aja

New member
i love the disney princess ones. "make sure your little pumpkin arrives safely" or whatever. we see that one often. we used to see one with big bird at the end yelling "remember, kids in the back seat!".
 

steph_s

New member
Are you paying? I'm not trying to be rude, the logical explanation to this comes down to $.

Commercials are expensive to make, expensive to air, and agencies like safe kids that have any amount of funding spend their money on getting lower cost car seats and booster seats for families that really need them not on advertising! To air a commercial on a local network station here during prime time for a 15 second slot costs over $1000. I know of no such agency that can afford to air on every single local channel around the country even at odd off hours like 2am when the price is often half that price. If they did do the commercial they would have to do it at prime time so the most amount of people would see it and run it more than just once. Lets face it, advertising is expensive!! I know just about everyone hears about super bowl commercials going for millions of dollars... well this is why! To reach the most amount of consumers you have to air at the time when most people are watching.

That said, my local pbs often has quick segments in between shows on childcare needs. Things like hand washing, walking away from a crying baby if you can't handle it to prevent child abuse and they do have something about car seat safety on it. It's quick, not nearly as much information as what needs to be out there, but it does talk about ERF (just says as long as possible), needing a booster till 4'9" and expired and used car seats.
 

jbarro

New member
We have a pretty good one here (Nova Scotia). It was made when the booster seat laws were upped to 4'9" or 9 years old. It has a bunch of cute kids saying why boosters are safer and important, and then at the end one of them says that you can buy one for as little as $30 and then in a close-up, a little one says "Isn't my life worth thirty dollars?" Very eye-catching, but I haven't seen it for a while.

It's pretty similar to this one:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRDxpuu-l-E"]YouTube- Booster Seats - Kids Educate Parents[/ame]
 

all together ooky

New member
I'm always amazed that the manufacturers don't advertise their products. You'd think they'd want to have more people buy their seats. Of course, that may be good or bad depending on how well they convince consumers that a certain seat is the best (which in reality it may not be). I suppose though, if they advertise, the price of the product may go up. :shrug-shoulders:
 

Wiggles

New member
I've always kind of wondered how much it would cost to purchase airtime for a PSA on ERF, at the very least. Because it would be epic if a 'concerned parents group' could get a PSA up--and it'd open up for a lot of talk shows because when a concerned parents group does ANYTHING, they get interviewed.
 

LISmama810

Admin - CPS Technician
I've always kind of wondered how much it would cost to purchase airtime for a PSA on ERF, at the very least. Because it would be epic if a 'concerned parents group' could get a PSA up--and it'd open up for a lot of talk shows because when a concerned parents group does ANYTHING, they get interviewed.

There are dozens of factors that determine the cost of airtime. What media market? What channel? What time? How often will it run?

Airtime is extremely expensive. I used to work for a public relations/marketing firm who mainly worked for cities, government agencies, and other non-profits. We produced spots and bought airtime for several clients.

I can tell you that it wasn't cheap, nor was it terribly effective because of our limited budget. We're in the Los Angeles media market, which means VERY expensive airtime. We couldn't afford to run any spots on local channels (NBC, ABC, etc.) So we had to work with local cable networks, which was a pain because there were four different cable companies in the county at the time I worked there.

The nice thing is that we could select the channels we wanted (ESPN, A&E, whatever, which helped target things more). We could also select a general time frame and general days of the week.

Because these were non-profits, most of the cable companies were willing to offer some kind of deal, which varied depending on the company. One offered a free spot for each one we purchased. The downside to that was that we had no control over when or where the free spots aired, meaning they ran on weird channels at 3 a.m. Some offered a 25% discount. You get the idea. But even so, it cost a lot. We didn't get much feedback on the spots because we couldn't afford to saturate the market.

Like anything else, the more you buy, the more you save. There are media-buying firms out there who are able to get good rates because they buy a ton of spots on a local, regional, or national basis, then divvy that up among their clients. Of course, you have to pay them for their services (just as my clients had to pay for my time in setting up the buys--not to mention the cost of producing the spots, which is a whole other can of worms).

Anyway, I know that was a long explanation, but the point of this is that media buys are expensive (especially to do it right), complicated, and time-consuming.

As others have mentioned, money is tight for agencies--especially now--and what money they do have typically goes to more urgent needs than advertising/education. With public agencies (like NHTSA, state departments of transportation or public health or whatnot) you also run into the fact that it's tax dollars that are being used, so they need to be very judicious.
 

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