After the initial launch of the "Give Me 3" Public Service Announcement campaign, the poster portion of the campaign has come under some fire because many of the posters that have been placed at transit stops around the city are facing away from traffic. Proponents of the campaign have argued that the posters are just phase one of the campaign and P.S.A.'s for radio and television are on the way.
Two months later, the Mayor's office has released the first of the broadcast P.S.A.'s not via press conference, but via YouTube. After opening with cyclists of various ages, races and genders applauding the goal of safer streets for cyclists, much of the rest of the advertisement has the Mayor sitting at his desk opining about why the city needs to be a safer place for people to ride a bike.
Honestly? I found the advertisement kind of boring. So much of it is just Villaraigosa talking. Maybe I've just been watching the CicLAvia Streetfilm too much, but he sounded a lot more convincing on Sunday than he does behind a desk in the Mayor's Office.
Of course my relative boredom is a sign of the new times we live in. If a year ago there was video of Villaraigosa arguing that Los Angeles is an ideal place to ride a bike and drivers need to pay more attention I would be ecstatic. But now that we've heard him position himself as a champion of cycling, a matter-of-fact positioning seems sort of old hat.
Of course, I'm not exactly his target audience.
As with the posters, the placement of the advertisement will determine the level of its success. There's no budget to place this video as a paid advertisement, but television stations are under obligation to hand over a percentage of their advertising to P.S.A.'s.
