The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Texas Center for the Missing, Houston’s Amber Alert Provider and Clear Channel Outdoor launched a month-long national child safety awareness campaign coinciding with National Missing Children’s Day on Wednesday, according to a press release from Clear Channel Outdoor.
The goal of the DOOH campaign is to help generate leads for missing children’s cases nationwide. CCO held four press conferences on Wednesday to highlight missing children’s cases in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and El Paso.
«With over 8,000 children reported missing from Greater Houston in 2021, partnerships like these are critical to reuniting families and ensuring the safe recovery of at-risk missing children,» John McNamee, CEO, Texas Center for the Missing, said in the release.
The national campaign, supporting the local effort, will reach millions in cities across the country over the next month using CCO’s digital billboards, including in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. The signs showcase a series of statistics illustrating the number of missing children in each state and the message «Help Find Them.» For 15 years, CCO has used the real-time capabilities of its DOOH media network to help recover abducted children through the posting of Amber Alerts on its digital billboards.
«Clear Channel Outdoor began this program over 10 years ago and has reunited a number of children with their families which is the most rewarding service we can perform for the communities where we operate,» Lee Vela, VP, public affairs, Clear Channel Outdoor-Houston, said in the release. «Digital billboard messages have worked repeatedly to help find these children and we are honored to play a role in this safety campaign alongside NCMEC and Texas Center for the Missing.»
The Texas campaigns specifically feature individual missing children’s cases across CCO’s DOOH displays. The child’s photo is included in each message, and in some cases, the child’s age progression photo is shown if the child has been missing for an extended period. Each child’s image will run across multiple digital billboards in each Texas city thousands of times per day on each digital display.
«At the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, we know the power of pictures and community action. Clear Channel Outdoor is in a unique position to leverage their digital space to help bring home missing children and we are thrilled to be able to fight for a safer tomorrow with CCO,» Gavin Portnoy, VP of communications and brand, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, said in the release. «Always, but especially on National Missing Children’s (Day), we encourage the public to pay attention to the photos of missing children and report any information they may have. It only takes one person to bring home a missing child.»