Odd Corktown billboards pop up asking for text messages

DETROIT (WJBK) - For months, a series of odd billboards have been popping up in Corktown that don't exactly have a clear message. The latest billboard shows off a serious-looking "news team", urging the onlooker to text breaking news to a phone number. 

Jheremie Jacque tells us this is his second billboard at Michigan and Trumbull. The series started with an even more cryptic one back in June. That billboard was a photo of Jheremie in the blue blazer with a creepy expression, asking, "Questions? Text 248-385-2135," the same phone number on the breaking news billboard.

But turned heads and raised eyebrows is actually what the mastermind behind them says he's after. 

"I just thought billboards would be a great way just to have fun," says Jacque, who's in the nonprofit world by day but has always had an interest in billboards. 

He says the text messages started out slow and he'd get a few every day. They'd pick up on the weekends, when more people were out and about -- but then he says his phone started blowing up. 

"By the end of it, there were a few days here I would get 100 texts in a day," he says. 

The texts were about everything from relationship advice, to where to dine in Corktown, to the more obscure. 

"Like, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Or what is the meaning of life? Stuff like that; it was all over the place," he says. 

He says he plans to keep putting up these eye-catching billboards, and handling even the toughest from anyone interested in sending a text.

"My most common response was to love, to love everybody. Love yourself; love life; enjoy life," he says.

The meaning of this billboard is a question we asked…an interesting theory from one Detroiter.

The breaking news team billboard is slated to come down next week, but Jacque says he has plans for the next one. He wouldn't clue us in, though; he wants it to be a surprise.