Public Service Advertising

This project aims to increase knowledge of the factors that contribute to the efficiency and/or effectiveness of public service advertising (PSA).  PSA has the ability to change public attitudes through creating awareness, educating and informing various target groups on critical issues such as physical health issues (e.g., obesity, smoking, consumption of drugs and alcohol), mental health issues, road safety issues, and voter engagement.

However, there are many challenges that PSA campaigns face in fulfilling their objectives. This project seeks to identify and provide guidance in respect of the issues mitigating efficient and effective PSA. The focus of the research may be on Northern Ireland (NI), the island of Ireland, the UK or beyond.

Project Details

Public service advertising (PSA) is a significant driver of societal and economic wellbeing.  Effectively executed PSA has far-reaching societal benefits (Grimshaw, 2017).  Efficiently executed PSA enables government and non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) budgets to deliver excellent value for money. Furthermore, PSA contracts represent a significant proportion of advertising agencies’ contracts.  Accordingly, PSA also has a significant economic impact (Snow, 2011).

PSA is subject to the strictures imposed by public sector procurement processes. It is highly competitive yet often affords relatively smaller profit margins for agencies and the procurement process can pose so many barriers that agencies are known to be put off even attempting to tender for contracts. Challenges to the facilitation and delivery of efficient and effective PSA abound.

Several key challenges are presented here:

Firstly, in the context of PSA, advertising agency selection is often undertaken by civil servants who aren’t marketing professionals and who may lack the ability to optimise this process.

Secondly, and related to this, this will often lead to a sub-optimal ability to brief the agency. It has been stated that briefing is ‘one of the most important skills that any marketer can have’ (Pham, 2021) yet some marketers lack training in order to ‘understand the core elements of delivering a robust brief’ which leads to a ‘training gap… which needs to be addressed’ (Pham, 2021). It is contended that such a training gap is even more pronounced within PSA clients.

Thirdly, value for money is privileged above all else in public procurement and while this should, theoretically encompass a balance between quality and effectiveness, a widely held opinion is that cost is prioritised over projected, long-term effectiveness.

Fourthly, research indicates that client-agency relationships are shorter in duration than before (Heo and Sutherland, 2015) and this is particularly problematic for PSA where the behavioural changes that the advertising seeks to bring about require a longer time frame.

By examining how effectiveness and/or efficiency of PSA can be enhanced, this research project will offer economic, societal and educational contributions. The best practice insights will be disseminated to the bodies and stakeholders who influence and authorise the procurement of PSA and to agencies and other stakeholders within the advertising industry who are involved in the development and production of PSA.

This dissemination is hoped to positively influence the efficiency and effectiveness of the PSA procurement systems; management of the client-agency relationship; efficiency of campaign development; effectiveness of campaign deployment. This will lead to the achievement of better value for public money and enhanced achievement of PSA objectives, affording improvements for the citizens of the island of Ireland in manifold areas that PSA can address.

This may also lead to agencies being enabled to compete for bigger clients, with the possibility of enhanced economic benefits within the advertising industry. The best practice insights afforded will be embedded into the teaching curricula of Ulster University’s degree programmes which incorporate marketing communication and advertising.  The best practice insights will be conveyed through academic conference presentations and publication of academic articles in journals with international readership, thus widening the reach and impact of the research.

Applicants should have an academic background in media, and/or communication/marketing communication/public relations. Applicants should be able to demonstrate experience in the primary research design and data collection methods they propose within the research proposal.

Please note that the research proposal submitted should be around 2000-2500 words and include:

Postgraduate Research Applications