There’s so little advertising that spends its time trying to make the world a better place, trying to add value to the community. This work is so much more fulfilling and lets us all take the skills we are honing and put them to something that matters. I sometimes feel more nervous on the pro bono work than helping out on a pitch for long distance services, as it occurs to me that the social possibilities are so much closer to what I really care about."
That assessment is from director Dennis Fagan, who is reflecting on his experience helming PSAs for the Peace Council, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to creating advertising that helps raise awareness about issues of social consequence. Fagan, who directs spots via Austin, Texas-based Synthetic Pictures, has worked closely with the key movers behind the Peace Council, creatives Daniel Russ and Brent Ladd, on several projects over the years, including "Hole," a black-and-white :30 that has a rough-hewn, home movie feel.
The spot offers the peculiar perspective of looking up at the world above from a hole in the ground. A boy’s face appears as he looks down at us through the hole. Another boy then enters the picture. The beginning of a supered message appears against a black background: "Please, Mr. President…" The spot then returns us to the two boys, whose curiosity has been piqued by something they see. One boy extends his arm, lowering his hand into the hole. The scene then cuts to the continuation of the supered message across a black screen: "Please sign the international ban on land mines."
Ladd and Russ spend much of the spare time on Peace Council endeavors. Their full-time roles are as senior VPs/group creative directors at GSD&M, Austin (see SHOOT’s "Creative Voice" column, 8/15-29, p. 16).
Via the Peace Council, they have positively touched many in the community at large. Among those are clients such as the Children’s Advocacy Center and the Texas Freedom Network. For the latter, Samantha Smoot serves as executive director. The Texas Freedom Network is a nonprofit group with about 12,000 members; it was founded to combat censorship in school textbooks. For example, in 1994, there was pressure to delete a textbook photograph of a woman carrying a briefcase because it undermined traditional "family values." The Texas Freedom Network successfully prevented this photo from being pulled.
Now the Texas Freedom Network is gearing up for the state’s next school year, when health textbooks come under scrutiny from the religious right. "We anticipate efforts to censor age-appropriate sex education, HIV prevention and the like," said Smoot, who added that the Peace Council plans to develop a campaign for the Texas Freedom Network to raise public awareness on the textbook censorship issue.
Smoot cited the dedication of Russ and Ladd. "We could have never marshaled the kind of creative professional resources that they are providing us with," she related.
Sandra Martin concurred. She is executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Center, a nonprofit organization that facilitates investigations of cases in which kids have been injured or sexually assaulted. The group also offers help to those children.
"Before we started with the Peace Council, we were bumbling around in the dark in terms of how to raise public consciousness," observed Martin. "But the Peace Council has created advertising that puts the child abuse problem right in people’s faces. It’s like we offered Brent, Daniel and the people at the Peace Council the most lucrative contract imaginable, but in reality we pay them nothing. They are overwhelmingly generous in terms of their time, caring, talent and skill."
