An Idyllic Community?

Marketing professionals, please help me solve this puzzle.

Today, cruising at 80 m.p.h. by Greenville, a footnote of a town buried deep in southern Illinois, I caught a glimpse of a new sign.

Not a billboard, the sign is affixed to metal, wood-tinted scaffolding and blasts its message toward oncoming eastbound travelers. Physically, it is quite large. Its scaffolding rises up out of a narrow strip of grass between the westbound lanes of I-70 and a field to the north containing an obstacle course – the kind the military uses for basic training. The course, deserted as usual, rests just outside the main security wall, razor wire and guard towers of the local Federal Corrections Institution that likely employs half the town's adults.

The sign reads, "If you lived in Greenville, you'd be home by now."

Let me repeat and re-frame (that is, "unpack") this:

"If you lived in Greenville, you'd be home by now," states the ginormous placard on the grounds of the Federal Corrections Institution-Greenville.

#howenticingisthat #justwow

On many an oft-congested urban spaghetti bowl of a highway system, I've seen billboards stating, "If you rode <insert name of local mass transit carrier>, you'd be home by now." Now *that* is powerful advertising to those stuck in rush hour traffic.

But, dear Greenville Chamber of Commerce, you missed the mark on this one.

Your message only slightly cleverly plays on those urban billboards. However, your words appeal not an iota to someone from Indianapolis, Pittsburgh or Boston, but to residents of, say, Vandalia, St. Elmo or Effingham just down the road. I'm curious to understand your target audience here.

Most confusing to me is the decision to place the sign directly between the highway and the prison. All the joke fodder aside, when looking to relocate – especially a new family with young children – a town in the middle of nowhere built in the shadow of a hotel for society's less-than-finest does not spring to mind as a first, second or 11th choice.

Your motive is clear. You want more residents. Your execution (no pun intended, given the physical location), leaves me scratching my noggin.