The Unexpected in Social Marketing Campaign Billboards

Social marketing campaigns are meant to grab your attention, increase your awareness of a particular issue and move you towards some action. All presumably for the greater good, your health or your community’s health.  Of course, this is a rather simplified definition of social marketing. It is precisely 217 characters-well within the confines of two tweets.  That’s how we roll these days of short attention span and twitter fingers.

There are many facets to developing a special marketing campaign. There is formative assessment to check in on the pulse of the community. There is testing and honing of messaging. There is evaluation. There is in particular the need to understand how people process information and how they are moved from one act to another. Again, this is overly simplified. If you like a longer overview, here is a nice article on social marketing.

One thing that can work for social marketing techniques is the unexpected. By that I mean something that jars you out of a sleepy contemplation to increase awareness of the campaign.

Check out this billboard I came across while criss-crossing the state of Louisiana.  Does it grab you? Was it unexpected?

Post and photo by Miriam Y. Vega