It’s natural to start wondering how long other forms of advertising will continue to exist as digital commercials increasingly dominate our lives.
Oh, don’t worry; billboards are here to stay. They are still around, healthy, and developing more original ideas.
Imagine you’re driving down the highway while blasting some classic songs as loud as possible while pretending to be focused on the road. It will take a major distraction to divert your focus. Suddenly, a massive, excessively cheesy pizza the size of your automobile appears. You *all of a sudden* remember that you are hungry. (Are you serious?) You then search for an exit number, address, website, coordinates, or something else. That pizza must be yours, you must have it. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the allure of an effective billboard advertisement.
Unlike other forms of advertising, billboard advertisements must contend with truly extreme distractions, such as speeds in the dozens of miles per hour range, open (and sometimes hazardous) roadways, and distances that render them unreadable. To overcome these obstacles, designers have developed a wide range of best practises and guidelines that frequently lead to the same, uninspiring solutions. Unique advertising that are truly amazing are relatively hard to come by. They expertly blend readability, recall, and eye-catching force.
One thing is certain, though, when one does grab your attention: there are some important creative lessons to be learnt there. I discovered 50 that will make you halt your progress. Ready?
1. “Lightbulb” by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO for The Economist
Takeaway:
The most effective advertising strategies involve their target audiences directly. Bypassers are a crucial component of the message in this instance.
2. “Bite” by Ogilvy & Mather Jakarta for Formula Toothcare
Takeaway:
Rethink the format and include the claim into the message to support it.
03. Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann’s “Tunnel” for Oldtimer Restaurants
Takeaway:
The key message is to intervene in unexpected places for your audience. With a commercial that the audience is involved in, change the scene.
4. “Nose Hair Trimmer,” a campaign created by Saatchi & Saatchi Indonesia for Panasonic
Takeaway:
Expand the boundaries of the format by allowing everyday objects, in this case power poles and wires, to interact with the advertisement.
5. The Calgary International Film Festival’s “Crying Billboard” by WAX is number five.
Takeaway:
Use a treatment that causes emotions to “burst out” of the paper to bring them to life. This advertisement made me cry with water, but you could also consider using other senses. For instance, adding a real laughter sound could increase happiness.
6. “Change” by Leo Burnett for Koleston Naturals Key
Takeaway:
Creatively utilising negative space can help you get through the noise of advertising.
07. DDB Warsaw’s “Chalkboard Menu” for McDonald’s
Takeaway:
Go retro with hand-lettered elements to capture your audience’s attention in a field where eye-catching, ultra-modern font is dominant.
8. “Woman” by BBDO New York for BBC World
Takeaway:
Not all advertisements must be flat. To improve your message, consider lateral thinking and incorporate potentially upsetting components like corners and fissures.
9. Fame Adlabs’ “Submerged Billboard” from Day After Tomorrow
Conclusion: Avoid media saturating situations by delivering your information in a clear, contextually appropriate setting.
10. Leo Burnett’s “Fresh Salads,” from Chicago for McDonald’s
Takeaway:
Find ways to express your message in the letters themselves by taking typography a step further. Consider how your advertisement might change over time, if this is appropriate for the message. By revealing a genuine growing process to the audience, this advertisement specifically supports the concept of “freshness.”
11. Being France for Jameson’s “Red Wall”
Takeaway:
Be specific. If your business is all about real-world, unpretentious ideals, consider placing your billboard in a more relaxed, unexpected setting. The most expensive, premier real estate may not be the greatest option.
12. The Chevrolet Aveo “Penny Billboard”
Takeaway:
Enable meaningful user interaction with your advertisement. Free gifts (or money) won’t always be an option, but there are many of other inventive ways to engage your audience.
13. Cadbury’s “Giant Chocolate Billboard”
Takeaway:
Don’t be scared to veer away from pixel accuracy. Play with the idea of showcasing the product in use rather than just a spotless image of it (like a sealed chocolate bar). even if, as in this instance, doing so requires breaking apart your packaging.
14. Leo Burnett’s “Giant Egg,” for McDonald’s, Chicago
Takeaway:
Advertisements don’t have to be static, flat, or even paper-based. They may occasionally be an egg that hatches.
15. Colenso BBDO’s “Self-destruct” for Deadline Couriers
Takeaway:
Consider how you can make the advertisement change as your message does. Do you have a countdown going on? Self-annihilation is more than acceptable.
16. MNFX’s “Realty Boxes” for Edina Realty.
Takeaway:
Even if you choose the conventional path and purchase a horizontal billboard spot, you can always experiment with dimension to draw in more viewers. Provide a 3D experience that makes users wonder what the brand is all about where they might have anticipated another flat board.
17. WCRS’s “Look at Me” for Women’s Aid
Takeaway:
Interactive advertisements are dominating. This illustration demonstrates how engaging your audience with a digital advertisement may be a potent tactic to strengthen a message.
18. Ogilvy & Mather New York’s “Taste It” for Coca-Cola
Takeaway:
Use a rebellious format to combine outdoor advertising and sampling.
19. Lapiz’s “Snow Grafitti” for Mexico’s Tourism Board
Takeaway:
Attention is drawn to effective advertisements wherever our demands are most pressing. There’s a good probability that our urge to fly somewhere warm will be as strong as ever if there is a significant snowstorm.
20. Oreo’s “Oreo Eclipse”
Takeaway:
Make your brand’s advertising engage with current affairs. Join the excitement and give your audience something else to speak about if an eclipse is getting a lot of media coverage. This holds true for both man-made and natural phenomena, as well as popular festivals, events, and activities.
21. Disney World for Alaska Airlines
Takeaway:
The most innovative outdoor advertisements magnify a compelling message (such as Alaska Airlines can take you to Disney) in an unexpected way (like covering up an entire plane).
22. Thjnk Germany’s “Assembly Fail – Shelf” for Ikea
Takeaway:
Don’t be wary of cunning mind tricks. This simple problem doesn’t forfeit viewers’ comprehension and captures their interest with a daring approach that properly captures the message here: assembling IKEA furniture by yourself can be challenging. Call us as a result.
23. Hetrick-Martin Institute and American Eagle’s “Empower LGTB Youth”
Takeaway:
When two brands collaborate for a same objective, some of the best design concepts result. Because the Hetrick-Martin institute and American Eagle target the same demographic, it seemed natural to develop a campaign that deals with one of their most pressing problems.
24. Fold7 and Mission Media’s “Probably The Best” for Carlsberg
Takeaway:
You don’t have to use every single pixel in your design. Instead, leave some empty space and create a focal point for a powerful design idea.
25. Cosette’s “McMuffin” for McDonald’s
Takeaway:
It can take some real creativity to position a new line of goods or services that you are not well recognised for (like breakfast for McDonald’s). Try to genuinely demonstrate these improvements with an unforgettable lesson to your audience in order to encourage consumer learning. The fact that the McMuffin literally rose with the sun on the highway makes it difficult to forget that McDonald’s serves breakfast.
26. Ig2’s “Magic Mop” for the Quebec City Magic Festival
Takeaway:
The key message is to incorporate magic into your advertising if you’re selling it. Visual illusions top all other eye-catching strategies when it comes to effectiveness.
27. JWT London’s “Life is Better With Cake” for Mr. Kipling
Takeaway:
Combining outdoor advertising with sampling is one thing; sharing your production process with the public is quite another. While displaying over 13,000 cupcakes is a very incredible feat, the fact that an expert artist is frosting the cupcakes straight onto the board supports the brand’s claim that they make “exceedingly delicious cakes.”
28. DDB New York’s “Story of the Open” for the U.S. Open
Takeaway:
The audience will look forward to checking out your advertisement again when it transforms into a living storytelling tool. And we can already say more about that than 99.9% of billboard advertisements.
29. Ubi Bene’s “Upside Down Apartment” for Ikea
Takeaway:
The best method to grab attention is always to play with perception and challenge expectations. Even more so if your brand promotes imagination, invention, and originality.
30. Bernstein-“Clock Rein’s Billboard” for McDonald’s
Takeaway:
Some advertisements have a dual purpose that makes them especially helpful for viewers. If that feature appeals to everyone, you might even be able to draw customers who otherwise wouldn’t be interested in your business. This one is a clock, and I have yet to meet anyone who is not curious to know what time it is.
31. TBWA UK’s “Bic Razor” for Bic
Takeaway:
Discover how the product may interact with the environment to communicate its primary value proposition. Take it a step further and consider it metaphorically: even though we would never use a razor to cut grass, this brand emphasised the point that it was the sharpest available, and it’s a need we can relate to.
32. Team Detroit’s “Burnout” for Ford Motor Company
Takeaway:
It’s critical to co-create novel concepts with other disciplines (outside of design) like engineering, robotics, and architecture if your market is congested (like the auto industry is).
33. Lead Pencil Studio’s “Clean Air” for the American government
Takeaway:
Sometimes what is outside of an advertisement is more significant than what is inside. Use your creative problem-solving abilities to make that message come to life.
34. Y&R Chicago’s “Trust In Your Hands” for Craftsman
Takeaway:
Consider strategies to make the most of the entire structure housing your advertising while everyone else concentrates on the actual art board (30% of the space, at most). To gain greater value for your money, use your creativity and identify the necessary permissions.
35. Tony Godzik’s song “You Made It” for The Detroiter Travel Center
Takeaway:
Effective design ideas can sometimes be straightforward. It might be amusing and eye-catching to change a formal symbol, like the restroom graphic, to represent more real human demands (such, “I need to pee NOW”).
36. Mike Sicam’s “Cleans Pores, Fights Pimples” for Pond’s
Takeaway:
Sometimes using empathy and allowing viewers to recognise themselves in your design is the best method to arouse a need (“I need a facial scrub”) in people. For instance, if you’ve ever wished to hide your entire face due to a pimple, raise your hand.
37. The Tylenol commercial “Get Back To Normal” by JWT Toronto
Takeaway:
For designers, hyperbole is a term that can be dangerously useful. When misused, it might come out as obnoxious and excessive. It is the key to persuading paradise when used properly. Exaggeration is a fun thing to experiment with and see where it leads.
38. BBDO Düsseldorf’s “Bridge Jump” for smart BRABUS
Takeaway:
Spectacular is a challenging creative brief to fulfil. When you or your customers need nothing less, search for several mediums that give impact and movement.
39. The Colorado Department of Human Services’s “When You Don’t Know Where to Turn” by Cactus
Takeaway:
Consider typography’s actual function in your design and how it may (by itself) execute a full notion before you get crazy with fonts and layout.
40. Google Creative Lab’s “Androidify” created for Google
Takeaway:
Discover the boundaries of what is possible with digital. You take the offer when an advertisement offers to turn you into a cartoon and then unexpectedly places you as a character in the middle of a popular area.
41. Walz Tetrick’s “The Slide” for the Kansas City Royals
Takeaway:
Determine the fundamental principle you want to convey and then ask yourself, “How can I demonstrate this without stating it?”
42. The CP+B advertisement “The Naked Cowboy Changed His Underwear” for Fruit of the Loom
Takeaway:
Guerrilla marketing and outdoor designs can occasionally combine to produce a genuine performance.
43. Kinetic’s “Sticky Notes” for Mazda
Takeaway:
When attempting to market a thing, our initial thought is to include a properly Photoshopped photograph of it. Break the mould and give your audience a glimpse into the procedure that resulted in the fantastic thing you are attempting to offer.
44. Cramer-“Luna Krasselt’s Corona” for Corona
Takeaway:
A good innovative idea can go as far as the moon. The memorability and virality of an advertisement like this are appealing long-term rewards for any brand, even though it could be difficult to convince your team to implement such concepts (because they might be very expensive). a great way to position yourself in new markets.
45. TDA Boulder’s “Your World Kitchen” for Noodles & Company
Takeaway:
The witty/smartass aspect will always give design a unique touch. One can’t help but ask, when looking at an advertisement like this one, “What if all of these automobiles were American?” A company that takes this risk and exhibits such assurance in its creative voice deserves my time and attention (and, possibly, my money).
46. Viktor Angwald’s “Reveal Candice’s Secret” for Victoria’s Secret
Takeaway:
Being the radical feminist that I am, I didn’t think there was anything worthwhile to be learned from this overwhelmingly objectifying advertisement. The curiosity gap was something I did notice, though, and it’s worth reproducing. Provide a bit of missing information, and observe how people respond to your advertisement in fresh ways.
47. Denver Water’s “Use Only What You Need” policy
Conclusion:
If you really mean to imply that others should only use what they need, then set a challenge for yourself to do the same. When communications require simplicity, lead by example.
48. Euro RSCG’s “Strong Tape” for Penline Stationery
Takeaway:
What if the item you are advertising served a practical purpose for the advertisement? Metal, paper, paint, tape, frames, and inks. Think about how the advertisement might come to represent your qualities in real life.
49. Chipotle Mexican Grill, “Our Ingredients Are Better,” number 49
Takeaway:
Contrast can be quite effective. Chipotle invited viewers to swiftly scan by contrasting letters that stood out from the background with those that were less noticeable, revealing a key point.
50. Stackla and Ocean Outdoor’s “#Colourblocking” for Topshop
Takeaway:
Real-time billboard advertising is the newest frontier, and corporations are developing creative strategies to capitalise on the development. Consider how you may include user-generated content (UGC) into your design if you are working with a product or service that receives a lot of UGC.
