Healthy Billboards

What if your morning commute took you past billboards bearing cool ideas and inspirational thoughts and beautiful pictures instead of ads trying to sell your more stuff?  And what if these billboards and bus stops inspired you to move and love and call your mom instead of eat junk food and buy things you don’t really need?  And even better, what if the media surrounding you made you want to be better and stronger and healthier instead of causing you to dwell on all of the reasons you might not be good, strong, or healthy enough?

The Inspiration Campaign — a campaign in San Francisco — is experimenting with these exact questions.  In the last year, it’s been covering buses and billboards with positive messages…things like:

• “Humankind.  Be Both.”
• “We are in this together.”
• “What has been does not limit what can be.”
• “Lead with love.”
• “Big things have small beginnings.”
• “Be who you came here to be.”

They’re doing this not to make money, but to spread their belief that “everyone can participate in creating a better world and that the impact we each can have, through any/every positive gesture, gets magnified when it joins the gestures of other individuals inspired to make a small difference, too.”  Yes, it is that simple and that awesome (and they’ll happily take your donation and/or suggestions for future messages).

Marketing messages are a huge part of our world and can dramatically influence the way we think about our health and the actions we take every single day.  And as companies are becoming increasingly socially conscious, I actually think some of the ads are pretty great.  So for a healthy dose of Friday inspiration, I thought I’d share a three of my favorites:

Chobani: Go Real

Athleta: Power to the She

Dove: Campaign for Real Beauty

Are there any brands or campaigns that motivate you to take better care of yourself?  Or do you wish The Inspiration Campaign could take over every square inch of advertising space on the globe?