Simply stated, The More You Know (TMYK) is iconic. The shooting star, the jingle–this PSA campaign has been part of the cultural zeitgeist and Americans’ lexicon for over 35 years. At its core, TMYK educates, encourages, and inspires people of all ages to take an active role in improving the world we live in. It all started in September 1989 when NBC News’ Tom Brokaw recorded the first PSA that aired on NBC. The familiarity and reach of NBCUniversal talent coupled with approachable advice on the most pressing societal issues continue to fuel its efficacy to this day.
The challenge for 2024 was adapting this respected and storied brand to engage new, younger audiences on social media.
Social media has moved past being a repository for traditional, linear-produced content to be re-shared. It’s no longer effective or even acceptable to post 16x9 video on Instagram and TikTok–it needs to be 9x16 in order to resonate with audiences. This posed a challenge for TMYK because its “homebase” is traditional TV, but what performs best in a :30 and :15 PSA in a commercial break does not perform best on social. TMYK needed to find a way to share its information, inspiration, and impact that was still up to the standards of NBCU (in terms of production and talent participation) but felt more casual, approachable, and authentically social.
Rather than script talent as is done for the TV PSAs, TMYK would tee up a prompt to talent and allow them to answer off-the-cuff and from the heart on the most pressing societal issues of the day. And, rather than seeing talent on a polished, produced set as is typical for the TV PSAs, they were captured in behind-the-scenes environments that felt more intimate. These production approaches resulted in social videos that gave viewers more insight into how the talent were “just like us,” dealing with the same issues and authentically opening up about their lived experiences.
TMYK also produced social-first videos that aimed to highlight the brand’s history, nostalgia, and omnipresence to younger audiences who may not be as familiar with it–we’re talking about cord cutters who might not have ever seen a traditional TV PSA! By leaning into trends, TMYK showed up to tell its brand story in a way younger social audiences would fundamentally resonate with–and that married well with the work being done on linear and streaming.
2024 was TMYK’s best year on social ever. YOY, video views went up 338.7% and impressions went up 245.4%.
Beyond the numbers, TMYK re-solidified itself in the minds of talent and audiences as a PSA brand that could translate to social and leverage social platforms for good.