Billboard and Outdoor Advertising

To raise awareness about an upcoming science fair with an infectious disease theme, stickers that mimicked the symptoms of some common diseases were produced. Gradually, they began appearing on objects all over the school’s campus. Bulletin boards, potted plants, furniture, and soap dispensers all received the treatment. The spread of the stickers all over the school was intended to mimic how easily diseases spread.

This design looks a little simplistic to be depicting disease symptoms to me–people usually stop associating measles with red dots by the time they’re out of elementary school, thanks to modern medicine. Then again, the students at this Brazilian middle school were not much older, and probably picked up more quickly on the ads than adults who might see these stickers as some kind of exceptionally dull abstract art.

Israeli cable TV network HOT wanted to let everyone know that it had the best shows and the best celebrities, so it told the public to take the stars home with them–literally. A massive magnetic billboard was constructed and covered with 6000 magnets depicting celebrities. The billboard, located in a high-visibility spot in Tel Aviv, was soon stripped of its star magnets by eager fans and had to be refilled several times before the end of the promotion.

Everybody loves free stuff–even those without cable can still stick the celebrities on their refrigerators. And they’re even reusable, unlike stickers. This promotion is great for long-lasting brand visibility in the home, even if the magnetic billboard itself is short-lived!

In a creepy and unique use of special print inks, New Zealand’s Rentokil demonstrated that there’s no such thing as “just one” cockroach. When cars‘ headlights hit the billboard at night, additional cockroaches printed in reflective “invisible” ink appeared around the single bug that graced the poster during the day. You can bet that some of those drivers decided to sleep with the lights on when they got home!

British Columbia’s Victoria Bug Zoo decided to give public transit riders a taste of the bug’s-eye-view of life. Bus stops were outfitted with plastic sheets comprised of hundreds of magnifying, distorting lenses, which mimicked bugs’ compound eyes and encouraged curious tourists to visit the zoo.

This is a great, imaginative promotion, especially in areas with lots of kids–I can imagine them enthusiastically playing games with the transparent panel and the funhouse-mirror-like images it produces. A huge poster of a bug might be a turn-off to more squeamish passengers who don’t realize how fascinating the bug zoo will be until they see the creatures in action.

How annoying can a pimple be? Extremely annoying, according to skincare company Pond’s. The flashing, rotating red light stuck on the girl’s face to represent a pimple was accompanied by a siren emanating from speakers hidden in the roadside poster. How anyone was supposed to drive by this distracting billboard without getting into an accident is beyond me. At the very least, passing motorists must have been on the lookout for an ambulance or police car.

Pathfinders, a teen homeless shelter in Milwaukee, placed extremely realistic stickers depicting homeless teenagers all over the city–on billboards, outside movie theaters, grocery stores, and restaurants, on bus stops, and even on taxi topper boxes. The stickers were so lifelike that in some cases police were even called to investigate. The campaign was wildly successful in netting both attention and funding for the shelter, one of the few in the city that offers beds for teens.

The visibility of these posters is great–it practically compels public dialogue about the homeless problem, especially if a large group of people happens to mistake one of them for a real homeless person. I don’t understand why a homeless teen would be sleeping in a taxi topper box–is that even possible?–but overall this is an admirable hybrid of billboard advertising and guerrilla campaigns.

[via AdsOfTheWorld]

Forget promotional buttons and stickers. Who says newspapers have no impact on public opinion anymore?

These collages of headlines chronicling economic and social disasters, featuring prominent Labour Party members looking pensive in the foreground, don’t really need to say anything else to get their campaign message across. Still, a little bit of calculation tacked onto the side suggests to the viewer that there is a viable alternative for this particular election in England: the Green Party.

(In a probably intentional “coincidence,” the Green Party advertisers are indeed practicing eco-friendly behavior by recycling yesterday’s news into today’s ads–a sustainable AND clever marketing campaign!)

[view larger size here, courtesy Ads of the World]

Arkaden, a Swedish fashion mall, in an ill-advised effort to lure customers into the shops to sample its latest apparel offerings, decided to bring the dressing rooms to the streets. For maximum visibility, they covered the sides of bus stops with mirrors overlaid with cutout decals of stylish ensembles. As if women aren’t already uncomfortable enough with their body-image, this campaign brings those insecurities out into the open. In a world where most women aren’t fashion-model-sized, these cut-outs seem designed to be unflattering. It’s as if they were handing out promotional t-shirts in size extra-small only. No thanks…