Billboard and Outdoor Advertising

If anyone in North Carolina has ever had a dream about a huge muffin popping out of its tin onto your car, you’re not going to enjoy this billboard. Bloom, a supermarket chain in North Carolina, posted this billboard as advertisement for their signature jumbo muffins. Look! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a promotional oven mitt holding giant fresh baked muffins! Talk about getting your product out to the people. Even though the real muffins probably aren’t that size, they look really good and work well as promotional merchandise for the supermarkets actual product. Passersby will be sure to try the muffins. However, the prop car crushed by the huge muffin was a bit much, but hey! We get it.

Living in New York City, I can’t possibly count the amount of homeless children that I’ve crossed paths with. It’s a saddening sight, as well as a nationwide problem, that needs light shed upon it. This billboard is slightly old, but I feel as though the message is very well relayed. The problem isn’t generally teen homelessness, but the fact that many people don’t notice it’s a problem. The light shining on the girl is sort of a promotional flashlight for the issue at hand. Could you possibly miss a little girl sleeping on a billboard? Yes, it is quite possible. Being that she isn’t wrapped in promotional blankets and the billboard is blank. The next time you see a homeless person, more importantly a homeless child, think about what you can do to help.

Wonder Bra’s new billboard is a compilation of 8,000 women photographed in their bras. The final product of the ad is a close up of a Wonder Bra model in her…wonder bra. The bra is the most important part of a woman’s personalized apparel. Also the tag line” D to G, because we’re a handful” is very tasteful considering the make-up of the billboard itself. I think Wonder Bra could take this campaign farther with some customized t-shirts saying the same thing just along the bust line. Just a thought!

I thought I’d seen and heard all of the Tiger Wood’s jokes I could take, but apparently I’m not done. Le Tigre’s ad for their embroidered polo benefiting organizations that help youth do the right thing displays word play at it’s best. Describing themselves as golf’s original tiger, for those who play a round is just hilarious. They don’t need a customized t-shirt with the phrase on it, a billboard will do the trick. This is also what I call promotional apparel for a good cause. They were able to get jab in and get a positive message out. If you like to play a round and help out the youth, pick up one of these embroidered polos.

Frontline is comparing people to fleas with this advertisement for it’s flea and tick spray. Okay they’re not really comparing people to fleas, but the floor sticker creates the illusion of people as fleas on this itching dog when it’s looked down upon. As a dog owner, I know that having fleas is not a fun thing. No matter how much you use the customized pet kit, your dog can still itch. Before you pull out the pet embroidered calendar to make your dog an appointment for the vet, try out Frontline’s flea and tick spray. Your dog will like it way more than a customized flea collar.

Cingular’s add for dropped calls is drop dead hilarious! The gaping hole in the middle of this billboard was once filled by the word calls, which is now on the street. Everyone hates dropped calls and it seems as though all cell phone companies are vying for the position as the personalized first-aid kit for the customer suffering from such a syndrome. People walking down the street probably don’t understand the irony at first, but get the drift after seeing the dropped calls on the sidewalk (very fine wordplay if I may say so myself). Maybe other cell phone companies, that have a lot of dropped calls, should start handing out promotional calling cards to their customers. Hey, either that or hand them over to Cingular.

NYS Senator Eric Adams is out to fight the crusade against baggy pants! I guess the era of tripping over your pants as you walk down the street isn’t over, but who really cares enough to make billboards and a PSA (money he could have used on promotional buttons). Honestly, there are way more pressing issues happening in New York state, and the nation as a whole, for him to focus on. If this is a rally for votes from his community then I would suggest he spend his time thinking of a slogan for a customized t-shirt. Anyone care to talk about health care?

Everyone is aware of the dangers of driving in the rain. Accidents can happen when you least expect it and there could be some unlikely victims along the way as well. This ad for The Papakura District council in New Zealand uses a billboard that bleeds when wet by rain. I think the ad agencies who design these safety billboard use children as a scare tactic. Everyone loves children (mostly everyone) and it’s shocking to see blood coming from everywhere on the child’s face. Can someone grab him a promotional umbrella and some logoed tissues? Oh yeah, it’s not a real child, but it could be. Hopefully the residents of Papakura weren’t too taken aback by this ad to understand the seriousness of it’s message.

Luxury car maker BMW has one of the most fascinating, and largest, ads the world’s possibly ever seen. Their ad in Russia places life-size cars on a wall spanning one and a half acres. The cars light up in the evening, but can you imagine what drivers on the road are thinking? The first thought to come to my head would be to make sure I still have my promotional auto-kit in the trunk every time I pass the ad (just in case something falls from the ad). However, this is creative promotion at it’s finest so I would think to have my personalized digital camera on hand as well.

The vision of a man on a construction site usually doesn’t make me want to grab my promotional travel fitness kit and get to work. However, the vision of an extremely buff man on the side of a construction site does urge me to join a gym. Powerhouse Gym thought it would be smart (and it was) to hang drop ads on the sides of construction sites and garbage trucks to make it seem as though the men in the ad were doing all of the “heavy-duty” work. I know I’m not alone when I say I’d much rather start with something light (personal beginner’s pilates or customized jump rope) before I delve into lifting cranes and sheet rock. However, to each his own.