Having fun with advertising billboards
by Julian Gratton
I love billboards. It’s the huge format that captivates me. They’re like giant canvasses placed in the city or at the side of a busy road that scream ‘look at me!’ but only for a few seconds otherwise you may walk into a lamppost or drive into the back of someone else’s car.
Over the years I’ve seen some stunning billboards that have had me turning green with envy. The best ones are those that have words and pictures that work together in such a clever way that they catch the viewer’s attention, communicate quickly, and stay with them for a few miles down the road… and ultimately stick in the back of their mind for a lot longer.
We are lucky in the UK in that we see some incredibly well written and art directed billboards. But one thing we don’t really get enough of over here are billboards that have fun with the billboard medium, either by using the immediate vicinity of the billboard or the fact that the billboard is up high or is just outside, left exposed to the elements.
So having gone through a lot of books on my bookcase and scoured the web, I’ve collected together some examples of campaigns that have had some fun with the billboard medium.
Fun with being up high.
One truly unique thing about advertising billboards is that they are always up high. And I like the fact that some creatives have used this to tackle what could have been some incredibly straightforward briefs, like the billboard here for ‘Take Care Health Plans’ from the USA. This billboard could have so easily been a cheesy shot of a medical professional showing someone some care… yet the advert that ran is so much more fun and memorable.
The same can be said for this example too from the Humane Society of Missouri. Yes they’ve got the size of the cat wrong in the execution, but it’s still such a lovely solution to what could have been a straightforward advert. A solution that I am sure would have had the billboard being talked about in the coffee shops and offices of Missouri.
Fun with the elements.
Billboards are really the only medium that is exposed to the elements 24 hours a day (Adshells come close but they have the luxury of being held in a protective casing). One advert that uses this fact well is this quite famous one from the UK for Friends Of The Earth. If this was on your route to work am sure it would have an incredibly powerful effect, in fact you’d probably wake up wondering what colour the billboard would be today as you sat in heavy traffic, the rain pouring down on your windscreen (as it often does in Manchester).
Fun with the time of day.
Trying to change people’s behaviour with regards the usage of energy is always a difficult task. The simplicity of this energy saving advert from Eskom is just beautiful, ok it only works at night but it’s still a very sweet idea to what could have been a very ‘preachy’ solution.
A similar idea that uses the time of the day is this ‘Save The Climate’ advert for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Where the one for Eskom only works at night, I guess this WWF advert only works if your workplace is positioned with a view of the billboard, or if you drive past it several times in one day so you can get the full effect of the message. Regardless of this, it’s still a very lovely and memorable idea that communicates an important message without trying to preach to people, it just plants an idea deep in your mind and prompts you to seek out more information.
Three dimensional fun.
I have a book called ‘Gotcha, the art of the billboard’ and one of my favourite pieces in it, is this work for the Museum of Flight by the advertising agency Livingston & Company. There are quite a few billboards out there that have used the ‘crashing plane’ technique (usually to advertise insurance companies) but this and the glider advert that accompanies it are just incredibly simple and well executed and need no other words adding than what they are advertising.
And as we’re mentioning destroying billboards to communicate something simple then I have to mention this ‘Smokey the Bear’ advert to promote the dangers of forest fires. Again, like the other adverts I have shown here, it’s just a very simple idea executed in a very creative way.
The future of billboards.
I think this posting shows that there are lots of lovely things you can do with billboards. One thing I have seen recently from the Cannes Lions Awards 2010 has been a great campaign for Yellow Pages from New Zealand that has 
Tweets feeding live onto a billboard so you can keep up with the progress of Josh who has been challenged to create Yellow Chocolate.
From Bluetooth enabled billboards that allow marketers to communicate directly with people walking by, to billboards with video implanted in them. It’s safe to say that despite the power of the Internet, billboards are here to stay… I just hope that we get to see more and more advertisers having fun with the billboard and its surroundings and not just staying within the 48 or 96 sheet format.
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Tags: Advertising Agency, Advertising Billboard, Billboard Advertising, Billboards, Cannes Lions Awards 2010, Creative Agency, Direct Marketing Agency, Eskom Advert, Friends Of The Earth Advert, Gotcha, Humane Society of Missouri Advert, Manchester Advertising Agency, Marketing Agency, the art of the billboard, World Wildlife Fund Advert, Yellow Chocolate, Yellow Pages Advert
