AHA nutrition campaign: painfully tortured messages

I’m still fretting over the obtuse messages of a nutrition campaign we saw in E. Harlem recently. E. Harlem has high rates of obesity, other chronic diseases and poverty and poor access to good food.  So the campaign is designed and targeted to reach the folks who live here.

In the last post I whined about the problem but I didn't name it. 

Here's one of the fixable problems of this cute but painfully tortured campaign.

Problem: 

Really Bad Advance Organizers*

* don't rush for the exits yet.  I'll explain what I mean. 

There is a thing in reading that really helps us read what something is about – a lead in.  

A title, a header….

A good lead in serves to tell the reader “Hay get ready to read about….”

For you techies, it’s called a “superordinate pre-statement” or “advance organizer”.

Example ripped from today's Fox News headlines: 

You know it's not going to end well!

Now, notice the headlines for 3 of the lead-ins in the AHA campaign.

Do they help the reader get ready?  

Is this going to be about vegetables angry about a world with too many plastic straws?

"Good Food Goes Bad – Avocado Fights Back"

Is this going to explain why avocados go bad and donuts don't?

Good Food Goes Bad - Lemon Takes a Sour Turn

So why you shouldn't use bad 

lemons in your soda?

A moral to this painfully tortured campaign is ......well...please sacrifice the word puns and give your reader some way to understand what's coming and maybe even be interested in it.