Above: Tori Bowie. Screenshot from the PSA.
A public service announcement for wildfire prevention featuring Tori Bowie has won an ADDY advertising award. Funded by the U.S. Forest Service, the Mississippi Forestry Commission produced the 30-second video starring the sprinter who in 2017 was the world’s fastest woman at 100 meters during the IAAF World Championships in London.
After growing up in Mississippi Bowie competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics to win a Gold medal in the 4x100m relay, Silver medal in the 100m dash, and Bronze in the 200m.
Great PSA. Thanks for sharing Bill.
Codos—-I think it is a creative PSA that the MS Forestry Commission and the Feds came up with. Ms Bowie may have even donated her own time to videotape. Dolly Parton did in 2016 and other celebrities over the years have done wildfire PSAs for gradis too
No problem. How does this ad actually address in a real way the problem of wildfires?
Look at it this way: 1. how much of the FS budget used for this could have gone to… a raise for all employees or perhaps legal representation for FS women claiming sexual harrassment or a contribution to a fund for scholarships for the children of fallen wildland firefighters? Since many women FF might say they didn’t pursue justice because they didn’t have the money for attorneys, perhaps a legal aid fund would have helped?
2. To compare with another example: All those ads for humanitarian food aid don’t actually help deliver food aid at all. Further, is this ad appealing to fire-fighting or titillating? A beautiful and athletic woman in very little clothes is the camera focus. Hard to believe it was produced in light of the complaints just made public broadcast by a very expensive PBS show about women not being treated as equals in the FS, but as objects to be exploited. Do the ad audience recap survey and see a week later how many people recall this ad is about preventing fires.
These are fair questions. Let the audience think about them.
This is a wonderful site, thanks for the great depth it has, plainly gained from years of experience by the owner. Have enjoyed all the news and posts. Best regards.
Is this the first fire prevention ad you have ever seen? Or, is this the first one you have seen that has something different that makes you uncomfortable? Let me see. What is different about this ad? mmmmmm I know there is something. It is not the black woman that bothers you, right? Get a freaking grip. This is a good ad. If you want to see other fire prevention ads, go to Youtube and search for forest fire prevention.
We liked the older Tom Selleck ad – it actually gave a bit of useful actionable information to the viewer in only 30 seconds – to make a clear space around the house. Simple. After that, many viewers will stroll out on a nice Saturday perhaps and look around and then clean up or re-landscape or something- an action that does protect the property. A good take-way for so little time. In contrast, and guaranteed it cost more money, this ad didn’t give the viewer anything to use. Just sayin’ as a member of the general innocent public, which is in theory the target audience, as fire fighters already know all this stuff, yes?
And since we don’t have TV, we don’t usually see ads of any kind, thankfully, frankly. We prefer reading informative websites like this one, actually. Thanks to the video linked here some weeks ago about fire-proofing against wind-blown embers, we’ve been busting our chops outside every day with clearing, using the information provided in it to reduce as best we can the issues that were highlighted in the video. Very useful.
And what are you grossly presuming about this perfectly nice person just because of a fair comment that is solidly backed up by decades of advertizing studies – the psychology of how to make the audience remember the product or service being advertised? Maybe ask oneself why did that odious thought come to mind when there’s nothing here to support it? Maybe it’s not very nice, and should be set aside to focus clearly on the important issue and challenge of wildland fire and wildland/urban interface?
wonder how much that ad cost. Isn’t lightning the #1 cause of wildfires ?
The percentage of fires caused by lightning varies widely across the country. Nationwide, human-started wildfires account for 84% of all wildfires.
According to the stats in that map, our region trends very strongly to lightning-caused, which confirms what we’ve seen and of course influences our localized perspective of the issue. It may not be the perspective of someone in a region where human-caused is more prevalent.
Probably no more in 2018 $ than the Oaklands Raiders Fire Prevention PSA posters in the 1900s. Gotta a problem?