A digital billboard allegedly urging people to not get vaccinated was spotted driving round the streets in the US to advertise a ‘funeral company’
The words ‘Don’t get vaccinated’ were plastered on the billboard truck with a company name, Wilmore Funeral Home, and its website address.
It was spotted near the Bank of America stadium in Charlotte (North Carolina) and people were coming to the stadium to see the Carolina Panthers.
It actually contradicts the message it was promoting on the streets when you go to the company’s website.
Using a similar design to the billboard, it reads ‘Get vaccinated now. If not, see you soon.’
When you click through to the website, it takes you to an information page about getting the vaccination from local private healthcare centre StarMed.
Wilmore Funeral Home does not exist. StarMed Healthcare has revealed that the advertisement was a marketing stunt.
Marketing agency BooneOakley took to Twitter to tell people “It was us. Get vaccinated” along with a photo of the truck outside their office building.
(Image: @yourgeniushands/Twitter)
The billboard was seen by thousands of people in the city and even more from the buzz it made on social media.
One user commented:: “As a Wilmore resident I was thrilled to see this come across my feed yesterday. Thank you and keep fighting the good fight.”
While another wrote: “That is very clever. Absolutely love how you got the message across.”
Speaking to WBTV, BooneOakley owner David Oakley told the outlet he was looking to have a proactive message being spread in the city.
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He said: “A lot of the advertisements that you see right now for pro-vaccine are very simple like, ‘get the shot’, ‘get vaccinated’. It’s very simple. We wanted to do something that saw things from a different perspective.”
Oakley continued: “The idea came about when we thought about who would really benefit from people not getting the shot and you kind of go back to the simple fact that people are dying that aren’t vaccinated, so who benefits from people dying? A funeral home.”