THE Jamaica Netball Association (JNA) has taken to the use of billboards to promote netball across the island.

President Marva Bernard says the strategy of putting up billboards across Jamaica promoting netball is part of a larger marketing effort to tip national support significantly towards the sport of netball.

So far JNA billboards have been erected at the Norman Manley International Airport, at National Heroes Circle and Weymouth Drive in St Andrew and in Morant Bay in St Thomas. Two more are to be placed shortly at the Cholera Cemetery at Waterloo Road in St Andrew and the Melrose Hill Bypass in Manchester.

The billboards carry photographs of the Sunshine Girls with the tagline, “This is Netball Country”. Sponsorship for the billboards has come from Supreme Ventures Limited, Best Dressed Chicken and Caledonia Outdoor Advertising.

Bernard said that the JNA is on a marketing drive to increase the nation’s support of netball and that the tipping point phenomenon espoused by international journalist Malcolm Gladwell is being explored.

She noted that Gladwell explains that a tipping point occurs when a small action or a series of relatively small actions has the effect of causing a significant change to occur in a situation.

“We believe that our billboards erected at strategic points across Jamaica promoting netball which is the most successful team sport (in the country) will assist greatly our overall marketing effort to tip national support overwhelmingly towards netball,” said Bernard.