The nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association’s (NPCA) 2006 print public service campaign is a departure from the norm. Mock blueprints for some of the country’s most popular national park icons have replaced adorable wildlife, and earned the innovative campaign a nod from the One Show, the world’s most prestigious advertising competition.

“Instead of depicting cute and cuddly wildlife, we are asking the reader to imagine the absurdity of having to recreate some of our national park icons,” said NPCA Senior Director of Media Relations Andrea Keller Helsel. “This new public service campaign is out of the box, a real creative departure for NPCA from our previous print PSAs. It offers an exciting new way to talk about the critical threats facing our national parks, and how each of us can help.”

Young & Rubicam Chicago generously created the pro-bono PSA campaign: a series of mock blueprints for national park icons. The creativity of the mechanical drawings were recognized by the 2006 One Show for creative excellence and named a finalist in the design category, one of the few nonprofits to be recognized by this premiere international advertising awards competition. Finalists were selected from nearly 17,000 entries submitted from over 55 countries. 

“While being recognized by the One Show is a tremendous honor, helping the NPCA call attention to an often over-looked topic that concerns all Americans is just as rewarding,” said Y&R copywriter Greg Christensen.

NPCA’s PSA campaign depicts blueprints of Delicate Arch at Arches National Park in Utah, a two-million-pound sequoia tree from California’s Sequoia National Park, and Yosemite Falls from Yosemite National Park in California. A rubber stamp with the words, “It’s Not Like We Can Make New Ones,” appears in the corner of each ad. Readers are urged to visit NPCA’s website or call its toll-free number, 800-NAT-PARK, to learn more about the national parks and receive a free map of the National Park System.

“We shouldn’t ever need blueprints to recreate the icons of our National Park System, but our national heritage is at risk,” said Keller Helsel.

NPCA’s 2005 report, Faded Glory: Top 10 Reasons to Reinvest in America’s National Park Heritage, points out that an annual operating shortfall of more than $600 million and a multi-billion-backlog of maintenance projects is crippling national parks nationwide. As a result, the Park Service is struggling to address poaching and drug smuggling, repair unsafe roads and trails, conduct wildlife research and monitoring, restore crumbling historic buildings, and provide sufficient educational programs for school groups and park visitors.

The president’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2007 cuts funding for national parks by $100 million. NPCA is advocating that Congress increase, rather than cut, funding for the parks, and provide an additional $150 million increase for park operations.

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