From Bing to British Airways: Top creatives pick the all-time 15 best outdoor ads

Nike’s ‘66 Was a Great Year for English Football...’ (1994)

Vicki Maguire, chief creative officer, Havas London: “It’s 1994, I’m a junior with no advertising background trying to make sense of all those creative rules: don’t write puns, never start a sentence with ‘they’ or ‘because’, the logo has to go on the bottom right.

“I felt out of my depth and grossly uneducated. Then I saw it. Eric Cantona’s face on a poster and the words: ’66 was a great year for English Football. Eric was born.’

“Simons Palmer Denton Clemmow and Johnson’s ad for Nike broke all the rules I was struggling to follow. No more than six words on a headline? Fuck that, we’re going to write 11 and they’ll all be brilliant. And that face, eye, front, collar up. Look at it! A cocky, two-fingered reminder that the best thing about English football at that time was French.

“Pokey, provocative. Irreverent. All the things I was told not to do. It took my breath away. Seriously a lightbulb moment for a junior like me – that’s the moment I stopped trying to be a writer and started trying to come up with ideas that would resonate with the real world.

“As a Leicester City fan it’s hard for me to say this but, thank you Eric.”

Sony PlayStation’s ‘Dot Screen’ (2001)

Jamie Axford, creative director, MadeBrave: “What I love about this poster, from the great Paul Belford, is… well, probably everything. A minimum number of words: check (erm, no words even used). Logo: check (loads of them). Arresting visual: check (from close up and from afar). It talks to its audience. Gamers will find it cool, inspirational even. It lets the viewer connect the dots (or shapes, in this case). It’s a clever, wonderful use of a poster site that will make people stop and investigate it. And that’s all you can ask for when creating an ad.”

The Economist’s ‘Lightbulb’ (2005)

Mike Watson, creative director, Wunderman Thompson: “It is elegantly simple. There is no headline, just the familiar red backdrop, The Economist logo and a large 3D light bulb that turns on whenever anyone walks directly beneath it. In other words, a simple idea promoting a clever publication that compliments anyone passing by. Created just before the iPhone and social media changed how we capture and humbly boast about our lives online, I imagine ‘Lightbulb‘ would have been a highly shareable photo opportunity if it were in circulation today. I wish I’d made it.”

Cameron Temple, executive creative director, Stink Studios: “The brand message couldn’t be clearer, but it also adds a smile to the environment of passersby. The creative considers more than the confines of the four walls offered by the media and uses context to include people in the idea – making it bigger than the sum of its parts. The result is that this ad may have only been experienced by a few hundred, but it will have been seen by millions.

“There are countless clever lines, visual gags and witty jokes for OOH – but in a world where we’re inundated daily with memes, social posts and tweets, OOH offers more opportunity. It offers context that can elevate ideas beyond a static concept. Done well, it can add value for the brand and people who experience it.”

The Economist’s ‘Jordan’ (2006)

Matt Lever, chief creative officer, BMB: “Creatives have a special gland. Not many people know about it. It’s called the “fucking bastards, I wish I’d done that” gland. Or the ‘fbiwidt’ gland for short(ish). The fbiwidt sits in the pit of the stomach and sometimes gets tickled, squeezed or prodded by a piece of work, whereby it emits a small plume of fbiwidt juice (fbiwidtj), which sluices around the creative’s body, eliciting feelings of jealousy, hate, resentment – and occasionally (very occasionally) respect and adoration towards the people who created it.

“This ad milked my fbiwidt gland like a thick wristed cowhand on market day. ’Somebody mentions Jordan. You think of a Middle Eastern country with a 3.3% growth rate.’ If you don’t get it, some context. ‘Jordan’ was the stage name of a glamour model called Katie Price, who was basically the most famous person in Britain at the time.

“If the name of the game for an Economist ad was to flatter the (potential) reader’s intelligence, ostensibly citing a tabloid car crash and then performing a fiscal rug pull was a stroke of absolute genius. And the specificity of the ‘3.3% growth rate’ just makes the whole thing so much more knowing.”

Nike’s ‘St Rooney’ (2006)

Dave Towers, executive creative director, design, Ogilvy UK: “It‘s simple, powerful and populist, but also incredibly cool. Brilliant. Wayne Rooney had been injured but was due to return in the next match of the World Cup. This poster went up on the M4 to announce and celebrate that. The messiah is back. The perfect visual poster. Instant.”

Nike’s ‘Chalkbot’ (2010)

Jason Xenopoulos, co-chief creative officer, VMLY&R North America: “This broke the barrier between the digital and the physical and, in the process, it pointed the way to the future. It was one of those rare innovations that didn’t just solve a single problem but opened the doors to a whole new way of seeing the world. But what made it even more special was that it wasn’t just a gimmick. It was a brilliant example of how we can apply technology in service of humanity… and how something as potentially cold and mechanical as a chalk-drawing robot could deliver a deeply emotional experience.”

Evian’s ‘Evian Lido’ (2010)

Grace Francis, global chief creative and design officer, Wongdoody: “Back in 2001, Cake swooped in to save Brockwell Lido with £100,000 of essential repairs and its client’s name stretching across the bottom of the pool in gigantic red letters. The client was Evian and the Lido was rumored to sit directly below a Heathrow flight path, catching the eye of every thirsty passenger passing overhead.

“When the work went live, I was still in my teens. I remember feeling thrilled at the idea of a career where you could be sharp and witty selling stuff and do something decent for your community at the same time. This ad made me decide to join our industry.”

Del Campo’s ‘Andes Teletransporter’ (2011)

Andre Sallowicz, creative partner, AMV BBDO: “When print, poster and film were the stars of the show, Del Campo came up with the remarkable ’Andes Teletransporter’, a Cannes Lions Outdoor Grand Prix. This idea blew my mind and after that I’ve never thought about advertising in the same way again. That idea helped me become a better, more motivated creative.”

Bing’s ‘Decode Jay-Z’ (2011)

Curro Parra, executive creative director, Dude London: “This idea comes from a real problem that is solved masterfully. How do we make people use Bing instead of Google Maps and build our brand in the meantime?

“It is beautiful to see how the campaign unfolds, so much so that it has become one of those ultra-referenced campaigns in every agency worldwide for years. It usually works like this: you receive a brief, and someone says, ’What if we do a Decode Jay-Z?’ Well, I’m sorry to say that no one can. Bing did it first and did it in an unbeatable way.”

British Airways’ ‘Look Up’ (2014)

Víctor Bustani, creative director, Rankin Creative: “A billboard that follows a plane in real-time? What?! I love OOH ads that make you stop to look. This spot from BA used data and technology in a clever and creative way. This was fresh for the time and it became a reference for excellence in the creative use of data. Not to mention that the power of this idea very likely got it more impressions online than on the streets.”

Dom Goldman, executive creative director, Above+Beyond London: “I can clearly remember the creative and tech person behind this, Jon Andrews, reminiscing that while in the garden with his young daughter she looked up towards a passing plane and asked him where it was going? This is when it struck him. He could actually build the answer and satisfy the curiosity in all of us. This idea was brilliant.”

Microsoft’s ‘Survival Billboard’ (2016)

Jaime Robinson, chief creative officer, Joan: “This turned a billboard into a TV show. Holy shit, so much fun to watch – it was interactive and the audience of gamers ate it up.”

Regan Warner, global creative director, Ogilvy: “This was a masterpiece of creativity. Eight gamers stood up on a billboard in a test of endurance and inner strength all to win a trip inspired by the game. The public controlled the elements via a livestream, making the contestants face blizzards, downpours, harsh wind and intense heat for hours.

“That alone would be pretty spectacular, but the view time on Twitch was an average of eight minutes per person. Eight minutes of dedicated viewership from the exact audience for the brand. And those viewers engaged deeply, giving up on sleep and commenting 32,000 times during the 22-hour challenge.”

City of Chicago’s ‘Boards of Change’ (2021)

Bianca Guimaraes, partner and executive creative director at Mischief: “’Boards of Change’ used plywood that barricaded storefronts during the Black Lives Matter protests as voting booths to empower Black Americans to register and have their democratic say. Simple. Arresting. Effective.”

Reese’s ‘LeBron James Bald Sport’ (2021)

Andre Gray, chief creative officer, Annex88: “In many ways, the simpler, the shorter and the less information you give, the harder it is to know it will work. It is very difficult in a traditional brand and marketing mindset to trust people. But you have to. Everyone knows this is a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and guess what... if they don’t, the internet is undefeated and will explain it to them when they Google it.”

HSBC’s ‘Safe Spaces’ (2022)

Lynne Deason, head of creative excellence at Kantar: “The message is communicated in such a visual way at the Spitalfields market installation – where a woman is attached to puppet strings representing the financial control of her abuser, from which she can’t break free – which is incredibly effective. It is a conversation starter and the impact reaches far beyond those experiencing the OOH ad in person as issues hidden by shame are brought to the surface. Critically, the campaign is backed by real action that will help people find an escape route from domestic abuse, which for some can feel impossible. This ad shows HSBC making a genuine difference and drives the standard up for other brands to do the same. Inspirational.”

Additional reporting by Kenneth Hein.

From the wow factor of 3D billboards to ads that grab people at literally the right time and place, innovation in out-of-home is soaring. Find out more in our latest Deep Dive.