German filmaker Werner Herzog, a living legend who founded his production company in 1963 has put his heft behind a brutal, 35-minute public service announcement as part of AT&T’s It Can Wait campaign. The multi-facet initiative is designed to get people to stop texting while driving.  Herzog pulls you into personal stories of personal tragedy remarkably fast–there’s no action, no breaks and no way to hide from the issue when you watch and listen to his chosen subjects tell their stories.

“From One Second To The Next” will be distributed to more than 40,000 high schools in time for the school year.  Here’s the kicker from TechHive gleaned a Newsday story: Texting while driving has now surpassed drinking while driving as the top cause of teen driving deaths, resulting in some 3,000 deaths a year and 300,000 injuries. That’s just one segment of the population.  We applaud AT&T’s efforts to draw attention to this horrible growing problem.

You can view the entire documentary on YouTube:

There’s a subtle art to PSAs, those heavy handed, publicly funded campaigns designed to remind us taxpayers to stand away from the platform edge, resist donating money to panhandlers, and avoid the dangers of tobacco (thank you, C-3PO).

But before last week, we’d never heard of a government’s PR team working to convince the rest of the world that local prostitutes are healthy, happy, and proud of their chosen line of work.

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We think you’ll agree that everyone wants to reduce teen pregnancy rates. But some citizens and advocacy organizations aren’t too happy with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s Human Resources Administration‘s latest attempt to dissuade teens from becoming parents with a bold new PSA campaign that seems to leverage the power of shame.

The campaign consists of posters like the one to the left that pair photos of distraught infants with harrowing facts like “90% of teen parents don’t marry each other”. Each poster encourages viewers to text HRA to learn more and offers “games” that allow users to follow pregnant teenage couples and answer questions like “my GF is pregnant! Prom is coming up and she’s not going, should I stay in or go to prom? Reply ‘promyes’ or ‘promno’”. It’s a sort of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure for the at-risk teenage set. User engagement, calls to action–seems like it could make for effective advocacy PR.

Planned Parenthood is not amused, however.

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Note to ambitious PR firms with experience developing PSAs “designed to inspire change”: This week The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, let everyone know that it would like a little help creating campaigns that actually serve the public instead of passing into the digital ether unnoticed like so many white-bread press releases.

The problem stems from the fact that the agency’s current campaign, with the super-creative name “Ready“, just doesn’t have the right amount of zip, or zing, or pizazz that the public demands of its government relations initiatives! It’s also a little scary!

FEMA specifically wants a firm experienced in pushing the message via social media; we have to say we’re a little impressed by the agency’s extensive multimedia Facebook page and Al Roker‘s willingness to make fun of himself for the public good. The winning bidder, which “must be adept at managing communications across interactive websites, social media, blogging, texting, gaming, grass roots marketing, social experimenting and other means”, could receive as many as four year-long contracts with the agency.

Do you think you have what it takes to remind the public that FEMA is actually a very useful organization, not a One World Government cabal best judged on the PR disaster that was Hurricane Katrina? Submit your questions and ideas by next Tuesday!

The San Francisco 49ers, who happen to be playing in a certain football game this Sunday, earned a bit of bad press earlier in the week after cornerback Chris Culliver decided to let the world know that he “[doesn't] do the gay guys, man” and that any pro football players who happen to be gay should probably stay in the closet because the whole deal just totally weirds him out, girl. Trust!

Culliver then issued what may be the least effective damage control statement ever, saying that “The derogatory comments I made yesterday were a reflection of thoughts in my head, but they are not how I feel.”

You’d think the clip below–recorded as part of Dan Savage‘s “It Gets Better” anti-bullying PSA campaign for gay and lesbian youth–might help nip that problem in the bud, right?

No such luck: yesterday two of the very players who appear in the video denied ever making it.

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Today in Things You Should Probably Remember News:

• Don’t bother bears, drug dealers, or wasps.
• Don’t tempt piranhas, serial killers, or rattle snakes.
• Don’t eat rancid things or take bad medicine.

The Melbourne Metro just issued an almost unbearably cute cartoon PSA starring bean-shaped characters who die in these and other adorable ways. Their point? Don’t mess with trains. The spot’s folksy song, written by McCann executive creative director John Mescall, is catchy enough to stick with you all day–and it’s free on Metro’s accompanying website, DumbWaysToDie.

Why did the Metro feel the need to make this precious, violent PSA? According to a writeup by local affiliate WTVR, Australia’s second-largest city does not suffer from a shortage of stupidity:

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Every member of the ad team responsible for promoting Axe grooming products clearly attended class on the day their marketing professors told them that “sex sells.”

Take, for instance, their ad featuring a stampede of half-naked women converging on one lone man (who apparently smells awesome) as the words “spray more, get more” appear on the screen. Not blunt enough for you? How about the shampoo bottle tagline that promises, “the cleaner to you are, the dirtier you get”? All this professional copywriting work sends one very clear message — use Axe, get laid.

Axe’s latest ad campaign, however, ventures into uncharted territory. In this case, the product’s ultimate benefit (sex) lies hidden beneath a very thinly veiled pseudo-PSA about water conservation. “Showerpooling”, as the company calls it, encourages young men to save water by showering with “a like-minded acquaintance or an attractive stranger”. While it’s pretty clear what might appeal to guys about this idea (and we don’t mean the eco-friendly part), Rob Candelino, vice president of marketing for U.S. skin care at Unilever (Axe’s parent company), swears the campaign really is about water conservation. Sort of.

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