Controversial SnoreStop billboard campaign coming to Northwest

A company called SnoreStop, which sells nasal sprays, oral sprays and pills aimed at preventing customers from snoring, needed a way to get attention. So it launched a campaign to send the message that when you stop a man from snoring, it keeps marriages together.

And it decided to choose actual couples whose relationships showed some diversity.

So, in their Los Angeles campaign, they put up a billboard on Sunset Boulevard showing a U.S. soldier embracing his Iranian girlfriend, who is wearing a hijab.

Some people consider the ad “shocking,” according to the report on Channel 2 Los Angeles:

“A billboard in Hollywood is drawing sharp criticism on social media,” said their report.

Of course, as we know, everything draws sharp criticism on social media. The reporter asked a woman who’d seen the billboard why she thought the company picked that couple.

“The shock factor, trying to shock you into looking at it,” said the woman.

But she didn’t sound too shocked.

In any case, get ready – the campaign will be coming here to the Pacific Northwest, according to SnoreStop spokeswoman Melody Devenmark.

“We don’t feel that there is going to be a lot of negative reaction in the Pacific Northwest because I feel that people there will more or less embrace the actual message of the campaign and not pay attention so much to the diverse couple shown on the billboard,” says Devenmark.

She said some commenters on the LA billboard felt that the company was trying to misuse the image of military servicemen, apparently not realizing that the ad was inspired by an actual couple, that actually live in the Pacific Northwest.

“We got the idea for the image for this billboard from a real couple. A real soldier who was enlisted in the Army did fall in love with a Muslim woman. Last we heard, they were living in the Pacific Northwest,” says Devenmark.

Company executives plan to roll out 20 more campaigns in cities across the United States, including in Houston, Salt Lake City and New York City.