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Pikachu & Meowth Combat Crime in Singapore Police Campaign

posted on by Lynzee Loveridge

The Singapore Police Force teamed up with Pikachu and Meowth for three posters targeting crime and safety. The posters specifically target counterfeit goods, mobile phone use, and, perhaps controversially, reminding women to walk in well lit areas at night. The campaign notes "we need to be alert to our surroundings to prevent being victims of crime."

The campaign launched on March 10 with an event organized by the Jurong Police Division and The Pokémon Company at Jurong Point Shopping Centre. The campaign is piggybacking on the popularity of the Augmented Reality mobile game Pokémon Go and hopes that the familiar characters will help spread the message. The event featured game and information booths so visitors could get a little fun in with their crime awareness. Items like notebooks, bumper stickers, and folders were given away, too.

AC Koh Wei Kong, the commander of Jurong Police Division said, "This is the first time the Singapore Police Force is collaborating with The Pokémon Company on crime prevention. With the appeal of the Pokémon characters, we hope to be able to reach out to more members of the public on crime prevention. We certainly look forward to more opportunities like this in the future. Through this campaign, we hope the public will have a greater awareness not to take dimly lit shortcuts, not to buy counterfeits goods and not to use their mobile devices while driving."

Police forces throughout Japan have turned to popular anime and manga characters for its own awareness campaigns. Aichi put cute anime guys on posters to combat public transit harassment and Tokyo hired horror film ghosts for an anti-drug campaign and Final Fantasy characters to raise awareness about traffic accidents.

[Via Crazed54678 on Twitter]


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