Volunteer rates in America are at an all-time low. They’ve decreased by 7% in the last two years alone. At this rate, we could see the end of volunteering before the year 2030. Since the U.S. Air Force is guided by its Core Value of “Service Before Self,” creating a PSA inspiring others to help their communities was an authentic and meaningful fit.
Most people believe in the positive impact volunteering can have. The real challenge lies in inspiring them to actually show up and volunteer. An answer to our challenge came in light of a human truth: people are more likely to do anything when called out directly by their name. So we did just that. Using some of the most common names in America, we called people out to volunteer in their communities and make a difference. We tapped familiar faces who shared those common names to further our reach even more.
Jeff Goldblum rallied all the Jeffs, Jeffreys and Geoffreys. Tony Hawk called out all the Tonys and Anthonys. And Sofia Huerta challenged all the Sofias, Sophias and Sophies. We broadcast our message through donated media and drove people to a website where they could share the videos, learn more about the problem and find volunteering opportunities in their area.
We tackled a serious problem with a simple solution and had a lot of fun along the way too.
To better understand the issue, we conducted research on volunteering trends in America: who volunteers, when and why. We also studied the most effective PSAs in American history to uncover what made them successful. They all had these traits in common:
We knew we needed to create something that felt direct, funny, engaging and actionable. Inspired by the simple truth that people are more motivated to take action when called out directly, we got to work. We searched the most common names in America according to census data and created a list of celebrities across different disciplines who could potentially help us get our message out. The challenge was casting out a wide enough net with the short timeline and tight budget we had. We couldn’t reach out to multiple celebrities simultaneously, so we had to move intentionally.
We wanted to find a director who had experience working with big names and a variety of personalities. Enter: Roman Coppola. He believed in the cause and was moved to collaborate with us; so much so that he even waived his director’s fee. With Roman on board and after securing our celebrities, the challenge of how to film them emerged. We wanted to make these videos feel as sincere and human as possible. It was important for our audience to feel like they were being personally called out to emphasize and support our concept of “Called Out.” So instead of crafting extravagant locations and using exorbitant amounts of equipment, we used simple scripts and small crews.
Not only did our simple approach align with our intention, it also helped us make something we could easily grow, expand and build off of year over year.
This approach and execution intentionally deviated from what people might expect of the U.S. Air Force brand to further grab people’s attention and drive our message home.
We created four PSA videos. One with Jeff Goldblum, one with Tony Hawk, and two with Sofia Huerta (one English version and one Spanish version). Various networks aired them through donated media across a multitude of channels. To accompany our videos, we also created a website that viewers could find through each spot. From there, they could rewatch and share the videos, learn more about the decline in volunteering, and discover ways they could volunteer in their communities. We also provided sample posts people could fill out and share on their social media to rally and call out others.
9.8K web sessions, 18.7M impressions, 1.04M in donated media value
30% of people who visited the website navigated to a volunteer group website.
