Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. "Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest—it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes." Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy.

Public Service Announcements (PSA):  The advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues. The use of Public Transportation with creative images can be an efficient way to get messages across to a wide variety of target audiences.

Public service advertising, non-commercial advertising, public interest advertising, cause marketing, and social marketing are different terms for (or aspects of) the use of sophisticated advertising and marketing communications techniques (generally associated with commercial enterprise) on behalf of non-commercial, public interest issues and initiatives.

Learn More on How to Prevent a Fire

In the United States, the granting of broadcast (television and radio) licenses by the FCC is contingent upon the station devoting certain time of their broadcasting to Public Service Announcements. However, to meet this requirements, many broadcasters air the bulk of their required PSA time during the late night and/or early morning, when the smallest percentage of viewers are watching or listening, leaving more commercial slots available for high paying advertisers. PSA campaigns reached its hight during World Wars I and II under the direction of more than one government. During World War II President Roosevelt commissioned the creation of the War Advertising Council (now known as Ad Council) which is the US laregest developer of PSA campaigns on behalf of government agencies and non-profit organizations, including the longest running PSA campaig, Smokey Bear(since 1944 to Present) educating audiences in the prevention of wild fires.  At the time, accidental fires accounted for nine out of 10 forest fires and destroyed millions of acres every year.

Smokey Bear is America's Wildfire Prevention Icon: He has educated generations of Americans about their role in preventing human-caused wildfires. Created in 1944, the Smokey Bear Wildfire Prevention campaign is the longest running public service advertising campaign in U.S. History. As one of the world's most recognizable fictional characters, Smokey's image is protected by U.S. Federal Law and is administered by the USDA Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters and the Ad Council. The campaign's original catch phrase was "Smokey Says – Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires." In 1947 it was changed to "Remember... Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires." Most recently, in 2001, it was again modified to "Only You Can Prevent Wildfires" in response to a massive outbreak of wildfires in natural areas other than forests. The term "wildfire" applies to any unwanted, unplanned, uncontrolled outdoor fire. Despite the campaign's success over the years, wildfire prevention remains one of the most critical issues affecting our country and Smokey's message is as relevant today as it was in 1944.

Creative Quotations: 

• Theodore Adorno: A successful work of art is not one which resolves contradictions in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure.

Joel Arthur Barker: Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world!

• Mary Kay Ash: When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

W.H. Auden: To ask the hard question is simple.

• J.M. Barrie: I'm not young enough to know everything.

• Frank Barron: The sorcery and charm of imagination, and the power it gives to the individual to transform his world into a new world of order and delight, makes it one of the most treasured of all human capacities.

• Matsuo Basho: Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

• William Blake: If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

• William Blake: What is now proved was once only imagined.

• Ray Bradbury: Life is "trying things to see if they work".

• Jacob Bronowski: We have to understand that the world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye... The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

• Charles Brower: The good ideas are all hammered out in agony by individuals, not spewed out by groups.

• John Brown: God spare me sclerosis of the curiosity, for the curiosity which craves to keep us informed about the small things no less than the large is the mainspring, the dynamo, the jet propulsion of all complete living.

• James Carswell: Whenever man comes up with a better mousetrap, nature immediately comes up with a better mouse.

• John Cassavetes: No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative, you're keeping the man-child alive.

• Cher: If you really want something you can figure out how to make it happen.

• G.K. Chesterton: One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.

• I Ching: When the way comes to an end, then change - having changed, you pass through.

• Winston Churchill: No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time steady eye.

• Winston Churchill: It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

• Winston Churchill: Perfect solutions of our difficulties are not to be looked for in an imperfect world.
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception.
• Jules Combarie: Music is the art of thinking with sounds.
• Oliver Cromwell: No one travels so high as he who knows not where he is going.

• Marie Curie: I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy. 
• Edward de Bono: Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and where appropriate profits.

• Edward de Bono: It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all. 
• Edward de Bono: There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.
• Edward de Bono Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.
• W Edwards Deming: It is not enough to just do your best or work hard. You must know what to work on.
• Rene Descartes: It is not enough to have a good mind, the main thing is to use it well.
• John Dewey: Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
• Charles Dickens: The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

• Peter Drucker: Knowledge is being applied to knowledge itself. It is now fast becoming the one factor in production, sidelining both capital and labour.
• Thomas Edison: Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
• Albert Einstein: The world we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them.

• Albert Einstein:Imagination is more important than knowledge.
• Albert Einstein: To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires a creative imagination and marks the real advances in science.
• Albert Einstein: Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
• Albert Einstein: If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
• Albert Einstein:  Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.
• T.S. Elliot: Where is the wisdom that we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
• Epictetus: People are disturbed, not by things, but by the views they take of them.
• Henry Ford: Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right.
• Henry Ford: The more you think, the more time you have.
• E.M. Forster: In the creative state a man is taken out of himself. He lets down as it were a bucket into his subconscious, and draws up something which is normally beyond his reach. He mixes this thing with his normal experiences and out of the mixture he makes a work of art.
• Erich Fromm: To take the difficulties, setbacks and sorrows of life as a challenge to overcome makes us stronger, rather than unjust punishment which should not happen to us, requires faith and courage.
• Julius Frontinus (Highly respected engineer in Rome, 1st century A.D.):Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.J
• Robert Frost: The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get to the office.
• Bill Gates: Microsoft is a company that manages imagination.
• Johann Woffgang von Goethe: What you can do, or dream you can, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, that they may start of winning game.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: If you wish to advance into the infinite, explore the finite in all directions.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The ultimate solutions to problems are rational; the process of finding them is not.
• W. Gordon: To live is to have problems and to solve problems is to grow intellectually.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes: A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes: The human mind once stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.
• Tom Hopkins: The profit of great ideas comes when you turn them into reality.
• Victor Hugo: Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.
• Dean Inge:  What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.
• Steve Jobs: You cannot mandate productivity, you must provide the tools to let people become their best.
• Samuel Johnson: Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
• Nikos Kazantzakis: A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.
• Charles M. Scwab: A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things in a vision, a dream of the whole thing.
• Prince Metternich:  The obvious is always least understood.
• Robert Olson: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
• Louie Pasteur:  Change only favours minds that are diligently looking and preparing for discovery.
• Louie Pasteur:  The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.
• George Bernard Shaw: Imagination is the beginning of creation.
• Stephen Sonheim: Musical comedies aren't written, they are re-written.
• Saul Steinberg: The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.
• Saul Steinberg: There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.
• Charles Thompson: Creativity consists of coming up with many ideas, not just that one great idea.
• Henry Thoreau: The world is but a canvas to our imaginations.
• Voltaire: Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
• Albert Einstein:The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.