Billboard and Outdoor Advertising

Well, there’s not much to explain here, is there? This sign’s appeal is pretty obvious, but still, IT’S ON A MOUNTAIN! I mean, besides adding comedic value to it by making it seem like your car is getting eaten, this ad makes good use in terms of its location. I’m guessing that this tunnel isn’t just outside of any major city and that whoever is driving through it is probably on a pretty long journey. And when you’re driving for hours, there’s nothing better than stopping somewhere to stretch your legs and get some food. Add a giant face advertising the perfect place for that and you’re more than likely going to end up there. You can kind of think of this sign as being the custom bumper sticker on the mountain. All I know is that I’d rather see a promotional food advertisement than some auto loan promotion!

A high incidence of driving accidents in Kuwait were attributed to drivers’ having been distracted by their cell phones. Wataniya Telecom, the second-largest mobile operator in the country, wanted to do their part to instill safe behaviors in mobile customers - using a hands-free headset, while still potentially distracting, is nowhere near as dangerous as actually holding or dialing a cellphone while in motion.

To communicate this message, Wataniya placed giant smashed mobile phone replicas near its billboards, where it would look at first like yet another car had gone off the road and only at second glance reveal itself to be a huge phone. The visual meaning was clear, even before drivers read the text on the billboard, and a law soon passed that made it mandatory to wear a headset while operating a motor vehicle.

[via DirectDaily]

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of ads like this one placed on revolving doors. It’s a good way to get the attention of commuters who are so set in their routines that changing billboards or other advertising surfaces like subway posters don’t reach them - someone walking through a revolving door has to look at it, or risk being mowed down by people on the other side!

This ad for Meiji milk suggests that with the help of the seemingly innocuous beverage, pushing a Sumo wrestler out of your way is as easy as pushing a revolving door. Meiji also used stickers featuring wrestlers, rugby players, and judo masters to represent those who could be conquered with a nice cold glass of milk. You have to give them credit for trying - no one’s really come up with a good advertising campaign for milk since the iconic “got milk?” ads of the ’90s.

[via IBelieveinAdvertising]

Fisch Franke, a seafood restaurant in Frankfurt, wanted to prove to its customers that its fish were the freshest to be found. So it stuck them inside a bus shelter billboard.

It’s a great publicity stunt, and from the accompanying video, visible here, it looks like a lot of people got their pictures taken with the fish, so it succeeded on that level, but I’d hate to walk by a week later only to see a bunch of dead fish floating in the ad and suspect they were hours or even days away from becoming someone’s dinner at Fisch Franke.

Braunwald, Switzerland, is a car-free mountain resort, as far removed as can be from the country’s polluted, crowded cities. People instinctively enjoy popping the bubbles on bubble wrap. Braunwald’s tourism bureau managed to combine these totally unrelated facts, posting bubble-wrap-covered billboards all over the big cities of Switzerland.

The bubbles were ostensibly filled with crisp Braunwald mountain air, and the ads were situated where clean air was most desperately needed - along the walls of bus stops, at major pedestrian-traffic intersections, along the sidewalks paralleling busy autoroutes. Needless to say, people couldn’t resist popping the bubbles, and regardless of whether or not there was any real mountain air inside them, Braunwald got a lot of exposure.

[via Ads of the World]

In a citywide campaign to raise awareness about the homeless population in Barcelona, the Arrels Foundation painted architectural floorplans on places where homeless people could commonly be found sleeping, emphasizing that for many of the city’s residents, “home” was whatever bench, corner, or bank lobby they could use as temporary shelter.

The nonprofit’s nontraditional approach to outdoor advertising seems like it would be a lot more attractive than more billboards about the homeless, which a lot of people tune out because they’re already so ubiquitous.

[via IBelieveinAdvertising]

Martor Solingen’s unconventional billboard display, shaped like one of their “extremely sharp” hobby razor blades, was surrounded with fake chopped-up pigeons in this gruesome but amusing promotion. Passersby couldn’t resist getting a closer look at the “dead” birds, though I imagine the company had to replenish the supply pretty frequently when people ended up taking pieces as souvenirs.

This is a lot more effective than a normal promotional poster - it’s hard to make razor blades look interesting without demonstrating them in action, and this goes way beyond the typical beauty salon and shaving applications…

[via InvisibleRed]

Most people spend the coldest months of the year trying to forget the temperature, bundling up in layers of winter apparel or just staying inside with the heat turned up and a warm mug of coffee close at hand. Norwegian Air Shuttle wanted to catch people’s attention during the rare times they might actually be feeling the cold - waiting for a (heated) bus, on a walk from (heated) home to (heated) office - in order to remind them that they need not be cold at all. Warm weather, after all, is only a short flight away. The massive temperature readout was supplied by an internal electronic thermometer, while the airplane fare below reminded passersby that traveling somewhere warm was not expensive, and that it was certainly worth it to escape the freezing weather.

This billboard for Morgan Crossing, a residential-commercial condominium development, attracts attention with its beige couple and their equally dull minivan clambering towards a life outside of “Boringville.” Morgan Crossing wanted to position itself as a vibrant alternative to the monotony of suburban living, since the condos the real estate company was trying to sell were within walking distance of retail shops, restaurants, and a sense of village life. The life-size beige people make this promotion more than a simple billboard or outdoor poster - it’s impossible not to notice them - and their abandoned automobile represents freedom from the need for a full tank of gas to have a good time.

This humorous billboard reminds passersby of one of McDonalds’ strongest points - the value menu - while poking fun at high-end conspicuous consumption by jamming a yacht into one of its apple pies. The juxtaposition and oversized display get people’s attention and hopefully set their stomachs rumbling, sending them into the nearest McDonalds restaurant to find out exactly what kind of food - with or without embedded boats - is on the value menu.