About Our CE0

His first experience with public service advertising came in 1973 when America adopted an All-Volunteer defense concept instead of conscription. As a field advertising director with Grey Advertising on the U.S. Navy Recruiting Command account, his primary responsibility was to help the Navy increase its visibility in the Mid-Atlantic Region. He worked with over 400 Navy recruiters teaching them the basics of public service advertising which was the primary outreach vehicle used at the time. From that position he was promoted to the Command’s headquarters in Arlington, VA where he was responsible for getting creative projects approved by Navy’s manpower program managers for a $27 million advertising account.

From that position, Mr. Goodwill joined Grey’s Washington, DC office where he was the deputy director of the drunk-driving countermeasures program working under contract with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. Better known as the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” campaign, it became one of the most successful social issues marketing programs in history in terms of bringing about desired social change. In addition to anti-drunk driving, he also became involved in campaigns to increase safety belt usage and the 55-mile per hour speed limit as editor of a monthly newsletter, the Highway Safety Communicator.

Based on his expertise in developing successful local outreach efforts, Bill was once again promoted to an account supervisor in Grey’s New York office where he developed a co-op advertising program for the Photo Products Division of Canon, USA. Grey was the first agency to use sports celebrities to help promote its cameras and the co-op ad program that Bill developed generated substantial revenue for the agency while providing an incentive for local camera dealers to sell Canon cameras.

Subsequent to this experience, Mr. Goodwill returned to Washington, DC where he became a Vice President, Account Supervisor at HJK&A, Washington’s largest ad agency at the time, where he managed the U.S. Coast Guard advertising account. The Coast Guard’s advertising budget of $1 million annually was comparatively small, thus public service advertising was the primary method used by the Coast Guard to communicate with its stakeholders. He supervised ten PSA campaigns shot in locations from Hawaii to Alaska and was awarded a Public Service Commendation from the Coast Guard "in recognition of notable services which have assisted greatly in furthering the aims and functions of the Coast Guard." At about this time the first personal computers were being introduced and Bill developed a computerized system for evaluating the Coast Guard’s PSAs. This system ultimately formed the basis for founding his own company.

Due to his military recruiting experience, Goodwill Communications concentrated on working with various military services in the early years – starting with the U.S. Navy Recruiting Command and ultimately including work for nearly every military service except regular Army which had a substantial paid advertising budget.

For Navy, Bill completely restructured their PSA program and ultimately helped them re-position their PSAs to take advantage of media trends. Over a ten year period, the value of exposure generated for Navy was $91.2 million and for all military services we have generated $460 million in verified PSA value. For a case history of our work for Navy and the other military services click here.

Over the years, the firm added work for many other government agencies and eventually attracted some of the leading non-profits as well. In the past 20 years, the firm has distributed and evaluated more than 500 national PSA campaigns. For a list of our current clientele, send an email to bill@goodwillcommunications.com.

Bill has made numerous contributions to the field of public service advertising beyond consulting with our clients and helping them maximize exposure for their particular causes and issues. For example:

• He developed a state-of-the-art evaluation system called PUBSANS™ (Public Service Advertising Analysis System) to bring more discipline to the evaluation process and build greater credibility for PSA reporting.
  
  
• The firm was an early technology adopter and we were the first to use the Internet for posting all our client distribution and evaluation reports, permitting greater information sharing with community partners.
  
  
• Mr. Goodwill pioneered the "shared reel" distribution service wherein multiple clients place their PSAs on a single tape or CD as a method of lowering costs. The firm’s proprietary services called CablePAK and Radio DiskPAK have generated $246.8 million in PSA exposure and over 80 national organizations have used the services.
  
  
• We created the Public Service Advertising Research Center, (PSARC) the only website dedicated exclusively to the field. When the words "public service advertising" are entered into the Google search engine, it is the first unpaid reference out of 98.7 million citations.
  
  

• As a companion site to the PSARC, we created the PSA Resource Center which provides a searchable database of all organizations that produce PSA campaigns by subject, issue or cause.

Bill received a master’s degree from American University’s Graduate School of Mass Communications and was an adjunct professor at Marymount University in Arlington, VA.

Mr. Goodwill has spoken at numerous professional meetings and was chairman of the Partners in Public Service, the non-profit affiliate of the National Broadcast Association for Community Affairs. He helped organize and was a speaker at the first symposium held on public service advertising in Washington, DC in 1983 hosted by Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Following are articles he has written which are currently posted on the Public Service Advertising Research Center website:

Articles

Broadcasters Cafe - Developing Your Station's Image Via PSAs
Broadcasters Cafe - Using PSA Strategy to Get Heard and Seen
Broadcasters Cafe - Effectiveness in Public Service Ad Campaigns
Broadcasters Cafe - Articles
Involving Your Community Partners
Planning Your Radio PSA
PSA Bibliography - Cause Marketing Pros and Cons
PSA Research – Myth’s and FAQ's
PSA Bibliography - Marketing Your Message
PSA Bibliography – The Internet: We Have Met the Future!
PSA Bibliography - Passive vs. Active
PSA Bibliography - How To Make Your PSAs Stand Out In The Crowd
PSA Bibliography - Corporate Sponsorships
PSA Bibliography - How You Can Use Evaluation Data
PSA Bibliography - Getting Credit for Doing Good
PSA Bibliography - Cause Related Marketing
PSA Bibliography - Outdoor
PSA Bibliography - Generic
PSA Research - Getting Help & Resources
PSA Bibliography - Network Clearance - A Producer's Checklist"
How to Place Public Service Advertising in Your Community
PSA Bibliography - How You Can Use Evaluation Data
PSA Bibliography - Using PSA Strategy to Stay Ahead of the Competition
PSA Research - Media Profile - Outdoor
PSA Bibliography - Television and the Internet
PSA Bibliography - Broadcast Distribution
PSA Bibliography - Broadcast Evaluation
PSA Bibliography - Campaign Effectiveness
PSA Bibliography - Campaign Planning/Strategies
PSA Bibliography - Outdoor-Distribution & Evaluation
PSA Bibliography - Print-Distribution and Packing
The SSA Public Affairs Tool Kit

Case Studies

Case Study - Print Public Service Advertising
Case Study - PSA Evaluation
Case Study - Financial Marketing
Case Study - Outdoor Public Service Advertising
Case Study - The Dangers of Sedentary Living
Case Study - Avoiding Communications Disorders
Case Study - Addressing Child Poverty
Case Study - Protecting the Environment Through Energy Efficiency
Case Study - The Importance of Community Partnerships
Case Study - How Military Services Use PSAs to Increase Visibility
Case Study - Using PSAs to Support Recruiting
Case Study - How PSAs Helped Increase Public Support for Social Security

Presentations

The 5 P’s of PSAs
Ten PSA Action Steps for Local Partners