To Catch a Crook With Billboards
A few years ago, I saw a "America's Most Wanted" type of investigative show that details real-life crime occurrences. The episode I watched told the tragic story of a father who was looking for his daughter's killer. The police had a rough sketch taken from witnesses' descriptions of the suspect to go on, but little else in the way of leads.
One day, the father has a flash of insight as he's driving down the highway: put the police sketch up on billboard and see if anyone can identify the suspect. Give them a number to call so they can give the name and details of the suspect to the police.
The happy news is: this worked. It lead to the arrest and conviction of the killer. Someone saw the billboard, read about the details of the crime, and called it in.
Using a billboard this way was brilliant not because it forced lots of more people to look at the police sketch; it worked because no one had ever done that before. Since then, there have been a few police departments who use the same strategy to give a sketch of suspect high visibility. But the problem is, if all police departments start doing this, and billboards everywhere fill up with police sketches, people would start tuning them out. They become the faces of missing children on milk cartons and cards in the mail that ask "Have you seen me?"
Women started posting the color and size of their bras as Facebook statuses as a way of raising awareness of breast cancer. It was cryptic, but it made people curious and inquisitive ("Why is everyone posting colors? Did I miss something???"), so I think it worked much better than a simple status mention of the disease. But rest assured that lots of other non-profits across the country took note, and a few of them are likely plotting a similar viral campaign as we speak. Namely: ask people to post something as a status in social media that doesn't make sense on its own, and it will force other people to figure out what they're talking about.
It's a little different than the billboards, in two ways. First, it will be less effective because it's already been done in that fashion. Second, in order to be executed, people have to agree to it. They have to agree to use their statuses for you. And because most people already know the first part, they're less likely to go along with any future campaign that's been cooked up to generate awareness in this fashion.
One day, the father has a flash of insight as he's driving down the highway: put the police sketch up on billboard and see if anyone can identify the suspect. Give them a number to call so they can give the name and details of the suspect to the police.
The happy news is: this worked. It lead to the arrest and conviction of the killer. Someone saw the billboard, read about the details of the crime, and called it in.
Using a billboard this way was brilliant not because it forced lots of more people to look at the police sketch; it worked because no one had ever done that before. Since then, there have been a few police departments who use the same strategy to give a sketch of suspect high visibility. But the problem is, if all police departments start doing this, and billboards everywhere fill up with police sketches, people would start tuning them out. They become the faces of missing children on milk cartons and cards in the mail that ask "Have you seen me?"
Women started posting the color and size of their bras as Facebook statuses as a way of raising awareness of breast cancer. It was cryptic, but it made people curious and inquisitive ("Why is everyone posting colors? Did I miss something???"), so I think it worked much better than a simple status mention of the disease. But rest assured that lots of other non-profits across the country took note, and a few of them are likely plotting a similar viral campaign as we speak. Namely: ask people to post something as a status in social media that doesn't make sense on its own, and it will force other people to figure out what they're talking about.
It's a little different than the billboards, in two ways. First, it will be less effective because it's already been done in that fashion. Second, in order to be executed, people have to agree to it. They have to agree to use their statuses for you. And because most people already know the first part, they're less likely to go along with any future campaign that's been cooked up to generate awareness in this fashion.