Part of the allure of social media is seeing all of the fun and creative content that your friends have discovered and shared. For brands, it’s a never-ending process concocting that perfect content that engages consumers while delivering a brand message. There are many brands, communities and media pages on Facebook – all vying for your attention. However, the last competitor that you’d expect to join the race would be a police department.

Most police departments have numerous activities they participate in as part of a community outreach effort. Police departments are not, however, typically known for having engaging Facebook pages. That’s not the case in Kentucky.

Due to some particularly cold weather, a police department in Kentucky decided to combine humor and the uber-popular ice queen from the Disney movie, Frozen, to have a little fun. Simply put, they blamed Elsa for the weather and proceeded to issue an arrest warrant for her -- posting the announcement on both their Facebook page and Twitter account:

A brief glance at their Facebook page shows engagement for their other posts to date far below normal – they tend to range in the 1 percent for posts. As you can see, as of 3/24, this post has received 10,500 likes, 1,218 comments and a whopping 17,524 shares. Seems as if a sense of humor combined with a little Disney magic worked well for them.

About a week later, a police department in Hanahan, South Carolina took this to the next level when they actually apprehended and arrested the fugitive ice queen after being spotted freezing a fountain outside their City Hall. Elsa was presented before a judge,  but was released for lack of evidence after the fountain thawed out.

At least one other police department in Kansas has followed the lead of the previous two.

This just goes to show that you don’t have to be a sexy brand with tons of devoted fans to engage with your audience. I’m fairly certain that the success of this content exceeded the wildest expectations of any of the police departments involved. Brands will ultimately find that with a little creativity and thought, they don’t have to have large budgets or big ad agencies creating campaigns. All they need is to have a little fun.