I love billboards that are animated or mechanical — Something that does more than just “look” good. Here is a brilliant use of a billboard: An ad agency in Sweden has come up with the ultimate advertising campaign…a coughing billboard.
Over the years there have been a few animated billboards in the Grand Rapids area. Just last year there was a good health billboard with veins that would light up at night…some red, some blue.
The Coughing Billboard is part of a new anti-smoking awareness campaign. The ad agency Akestam Holst installed a kiosk in Stockholm’s busy Odenplan square.
Whenever a person is smoking, or lights up a cigarette, near the billboard the man on the digital screen coughs! It really catches the smokers off guard. You can see in the video that some are just not quite sure how to react to the billboard that is reacting to their cigarette smoke.
How does it work? Well the billboard is outfitted with a smoke detector. Whenever smoke is detected, the video transitions to the video of the coughing model. After a few seconds, the screen then displays an ad for various products from Apotek Hjartat to help the smoker to quit.
See for yourself…here is a video of the “Coughing Billboard”…
Photo: YouTube/Apotek Hjärtat
