Non Commercial Advertising

Public communication campaigns can be defined as purposive attempts to inform or influence behaviors in large audiences within a specified time period using an organized set of communication activities and featuring an array of mediated messages in multiple channels generally to produce noncommercial benefits to individuals and society (Rice & Atkin, 2009; Rogers & Storey, 1987). Such Campaigns across the spectrum of health, prosocial, and environmental domains share some similarities to commercial advertising campaigns.

In McGuire’s classic Communication-Persuasion Matrix, or input–output model, the communication input variables include source, message, channel, and audience. The output process posits audience responses to campaign stimuli

Commercial advertising attempt for the sales of goods and services to sell something to a consumer that will make the manufacturer of the product to earn a return from that sale. For instance, Advertisements for FMCGs, consumer durable goods like electronics, food products, and even vacation packages are all marketed and sold as part of a commercial advertising mainly to increase consumption through "branding". This is a technique that involves associating a product name or image with certain qualities in the minds of consumers.

Contrarily, the Non commercial advertising aims to educate people or promote specific ideas to provide more information and motivate people to act after being exposed to the same. Being non-profit initiatives, such campaigns increase public awareness through educating them on certain vital issues that affect the society at large and enable them to act on that acquired knowledge. For instance, Non-commercial advertisers spend money to advertise items other than a consumer product or service and that include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Public Service Announcements (PSAs) [also termed as Socially Relevant Advertisements – SRAs) are now playing a very significant role by delivering new themes; messages in a very new perspective so as to capture the attention of the

PSA usually attempts to increase public awareness of social problems and their potential solutions. And in many occasions it tries to influence the public beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour concerning them (O’Keefe, 1990). Persuasive messages in public communication campaigns frequently utilize a basic expectancy- value mechanism by designing messages to influence beliefs regarding the subjective likelihood of various outcomes occurring; attitudinal and behavioral effects are contingent upon each individual’s valuation of these outcomes. In seeking to influence behavior, campaigners may decide to promote positive behaviors or to prevent problematic behaviors. Traditionally, prevention campaigns present fear appeals to focus attention on negative consequences of a detrimental practice rather than promoting the desirability of a positive alternative. This approach is most potent in cases where harmful outcomes are genuinely threatening or positive products are insufficiently