The World's
Best 50
Out-of-Home
Ads Ever

We asked our readers to nominate their favorite out-of-home ads ever. With help from our industry-leading editorial team, marketing friends, columnists, and vast archive of award-winning ads, we ranked them. You’ll spot some all-time classics here, but we gave a little extra weight to recent work that pushed the boundaries of what out-of-home can be through creative technology, smart media thinking and even reinvention of the medium itself. Sit back, relax, and get inspired by an out-of-this-world out-of-home list.

50. Absolut New York

Brand: Absolut

Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day New York

In 2001, decades after ‘I Love New York’ turned the city into a global brand, Absolut gave it a bottle. TBWA\Chiat\Day New York’s Absolut New York brought a local twist to one of advertising’s most enduring platforms.

49. Look at Me

Brand: Women's Aid

Agency: WCRS

WCRS and Women’s Aid used technology to turn awareness into participation. Created in 2015, the digital billboard in London’s Canary Wharf showed that domestic abuse thrives in silence – and that attention can be a first step toward change.

48. Tiny Billboards

Brand: Skoda

Agency: Nord DDB

In 2022, NORD DDB and Škoda flipped the logic of outdoor advertising. Most car brands chase visibility with oversized OOH. Škoda did the opposite to highlight the agility of its compact SUV range.

47. Wave of Waste

Brand: Corona

Agency: Wieden+Kennedy

Unveiled for World Oceans Day in 2018, Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam and Corona made pollution purposeful by building a sculpture from the very material it sought to eliminate.

46. Change

Brand: Koleston Naturals

Agency: Leo Burnett

Leo Burnett Beirut and Koleston Naturals turned the sky into a creative collaborator in 2008. The idea was to show how the hair colour range shifts naturally under light, without relying on copy or product shots.

45. Dynamite

Brand: Marmite

Agency: Adam&EveDDB

Adam&Eve/DDB turned Marmite’s “Love it or Hate it” promise into a visual blast. Created to launch a chili-infused edition of the spread in 2021, the campaign treated flavour intensity as a force of nature.

44. Think Different

Brand: Apple

Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day

TBWA\Chiat\Day and Apple marked a return to form at a crucial point in its history. Created in 1997, shortly after Steve Jobs returned to the company, it reintroduced Apple as a brand that stood for imagination and independent thinking.

43. Assembly Fail

Brand: Ikea

Agency: Thjnk Germany

Thjnk Germany celebrated Ikea’s most human truth: sometimes, the furniture fights back. The idea, launched in 2015, turned a product friction, difficult assembly, into a part of the experience. We like puzzles here at The Drum.

42. Unbelievable Bus Shelter

Brand: Pepsi Max

Agency: AMV BBDO

Launched in 2014, AMV BBDO and Pepsi Max turned an everyday wait into a moment of wonder. The idea was to bring the brand’s “Unbelievable” promise to life by staging the impossible in the middle of London and filming candid reactions

41. Stay Connected at Night

Brand: EE

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi London

Saatchi & Saatchi London showed how technology can serve the public good by using EE’s network reliability to help people get home safely after dark in 2023. This idea needs to be stolen and expanded.

40. The Truth Is Worth It

Brand: The New York Times

Agency: Droga5

In 2018, Droga5 and The New York Times redefined how journalism could be visualized by showing the painstaking process behind every verified fact and remind audiences that truth is not instant; it is earned, and more importantly, worth paying for.

39. Pathfinder Finds Its Way

Brand: Nissan

Agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day NY

In 2022, TBWA\Chiat\Day New York and Nissan showcased the brand's adventurous nature by visualizing potential journeys as art in the form of jungle-inspired explorer bus stops.

38. The Big Blue Bag

Brand: Ikea

Agency: Mother London

Mother London and Ikea showed an iconic household object at a city-scale in 2024 to celebrate its functionality and playfulness. No one can disagree that the Frakta bag is truly monumental now.

37. Claustrobar

Brand: Stella Artois

Agency: Grey London

Grey London and Stella Artois showed the lengths people would go for a perfectly poured beer, turning the brand’s ‘worth it’ positioning into an experience of playful confinement. Nice to see the pubs busy again in 2025.

36. It Could Only Be Müller Corner

Brand: Müller Corner

Agency: VCCP London

In 2022, VCCP London and Müller leaned heavily on distinctive brand assets to make a point that no competitors could mimic with a folded special build. Delicious.

35. Shadow Billboard

Brand: BBC

Agency: BBC Creative

Installed in London in early 2020, BBC Creative turned darkness into design to promote the 2020 premiere of Dracula. Like a vampire, its true form only appeared at night.

34. Wires

Brand: Panasonic

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi Indonesia

In 2009, Saatchi & Saatchi Indonesia and Panasonic used visual wit to make grooming impossible to ignore. The concept was to show precision and purpose through an image that spoke for itself.

33. Friends Ends Fri

Brand: Channel 4

Agency: 4Creative

Launched in 2004, Channel 4’s ‘Friends Ends Fri’ turned a routine scheduling notice into one of the UK broadcaster’s most memorable outdoor moments. This was one of the most-nominated campaigns in our long-list.

32. Scratch & Sniff

Brand: Axe/Lynx

Agency: Lola MullenLowe Madrid

In 2025, Lola MullenLowe Madrid’s Scratch & Sniff campaign for the deodorant melded experiential, outdoor with a hint of social. And most importantly, it made us laugh and remember.

31. Phone Break

Brand: KitKat

Agency: VML Czechia

VML Czechia reinterpreted KitKat’s 90-year-old slogan for the smartphone era with striking work that makes you rethink your behavior for the better. Just the message 2025 needed.

30. I Never Read

Brand: The Economist

Agency: AMV BBDO

AMV BBDO was an agency built from razor-sharp copy that pushed The Economist. This work provides a satisfying deduction for those who engage; a 1988 classic that still hits hard.

29. Free The Feed

Brand: Elvie

Agency: Mother

In 2018, Mother London and Elvie covered London in huge boobs to normalize breastfeeding and pumping in public, challenging social stigma with humor, beauty, and scale.

28. People for Smarter Cities

Brand: IBM

Agency: Ogilvy France

Ogilvy France helped IBM to serve the public, proving its utility to users. In 2013, it showed how design thinking could improve daily life. If only more brands took this approach.

27. It’s Rude Not to Stare

Brand: Channel 4

Agency: 4Creative

For its 2024 Paralympics coverage, Channel 4 issued a bold challenge to societal discomfort with disability that evolved previous Superhuman messaging in a tasteful way. It was a message that one couldn’t not look at.

26. The Billboard Trap

Brand: Orphea

Agency: Publicis Italy

In 2013, Publicis Italy’s Billboard Trap for Orphea Insecticide blurred the line between advertising and live experiment. This artistic expression of product evolved over days to make a killer point.

25. Has to Be Heinz

Brand: Heinz

Agency: Wieden+Kennedy London

Wieden+Kennedy London and Heinz ran a beautiful minimalist campaign that affords viewers a satisfying cognitive leap in 2023. Zoomed hero shots celebrated the consistency of Heinz’s flavor and identity.

24. Probably the Best Poster in the World

Brand: Carslberg

Agency: Fold7

Carlsberg and Fold7 manifested brand promise in the heart of London by allowing commuters to pour themselves a pint straight from the billboard. It’s not ‘Probably the Best Poster In the World’, but it is the 24th best.

23. Breakfast, Done Properly

Brand: McDonald's

Agency: Leo Burnett

This campaign triggers the salivary glands and reinforces a powerful enticement. In 2025, Leo Burnett and McDonald’s formed many a new routine with artistic hero shots of its breakfast menu.

22. Barbie

Brand: Warner Bros

Agency: Kinetic and PHD

Warner Bros. and Mattel’s Barbie outdoor takeover turned film marketing into a cultural event that drenched the world in signature pink. In 2023, a range of minimalist billboards said more than any words could.

21. The Trillion Dollar Campaign

Brand: The Zimbabwean

Agency: TBWA\Hunt Lascaris

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but in 2009, it was pasted on a billboard in Zimbabwe to highlight the collapse of the nation’s currency. Robert Mugabe would have hated this work from The Zimbabwean newspaper, but we love its creativity.

20. Together This Ramadan

Brand: Tesco

Agency: BBH London

BBH London and Tesco marked the festival of Ramadan in a sensitive and effective manner in 2022, showing how brands can honor community. Digital ads only showed food on a plate at times Muslim communities could break their fasts.

19. IT Outage

Brand: Decathlon

Agency: Rethink

When a global IT crash hit airlines, banks, hospitals and retailers in 2024, Decathlon and Rethink seized the day with an error-themed campaign urging customers to “head outdoors instead”.

18. The Most Disastrous Campaign Ever

Brand: Hiscox

Agency: Uncommon Creative Studio

This 2019 campaign positioned the insurer as a patron of boldness rather than caution. Filling outdoor sites with sharp, self-deprecating copy such as ‘This could go terribly right,’ the work mirrored Hiscox’s reputation for backing entrepreneurs willing to take smart risks.

17. Windows

Brand: British airways

Agency: Uncommon Creative Studio

The idea was to reflect travelers’ moments of wonder at 35,000 feet and translate that into advertising befitting of an iconic brand. With stunning photography, these 2024 ads reinforced the UK flag carrier’s premium positioning and turned a familiar view into an entirely new perspective.

16. Survival Billboard

Brand: Xbox

Agency: McCann London

In 2015, eight Tomb Raider fans were invited to stand on a billboard for 20 hours, exposed to the elements as the public voted online to trigger rain, snow, and wind in real time. The event attracted millions of viewers globally and turned the ad medium into both a physical and digital stage.

15. Meet Marina Prieto

Brand: JCDecaux

Agency: Ogilvy

Launched in 2023, the campaign set out to prove that out-of-home is so powerful it can even turn an ordinary 100-year-old woman into a national celebrity. Portraits of the adorable Marina Prieto sprang up around Madrid, sparking curiosity, and soon millions were asking who she was.

14. Billboard Powered by Oranges

Brand: Tropicana

Agency: DDB France

Back in 2011, engineers wired 2,500 oranges with zinc and copper spikes, creating a low-voltage circuit strong enough to light the billboard’s text. Each orange produced a small voltage, and when linked in series, the combined power was enough to turn fruit into real energy.

13. Fearless Girl

Brand: State Street Global Advisors

Agency: McCann New York

The four-foot-tall statue staring down Wall Street’s Charging Bull was intended as a temporary installation for International Women’s Day 2017. But public reaction made it permanent. Within 48 hours, it had become a global talking point about representation and corporate responsibility.

12. Thanks 2016, It’s Been Weird

Brand: Spotify

Agency: Spotify

The streamer made big data relatable by reflecting cultural quirks and musical moments from one of the most turbulent years in memory. Launched in late 2016, billboards appeared across major cities with lines like “Dear person who played ‘Sorry’ 42 times on Valentine’s Day, what did you do?”

11. Follow the Arches

Brand: McDonald's

Agency: Cossette

This 2018 campaign reimagined one of the most recognizable symbols in branding – the golden arches – as navigational signage. Cropped sections of the arches strategically placed along highways became directional indicators, guiding drivers to the nearest McDonald’s restaurant.

10. Magic of Flying (#LookUp)

Brand: British Airways

Agency: OgilvyOne

Launched in 2013, digital billboards across London displayed live messages triggered by actual British Airways planes overhead. As each aircraft flew into range, the screen showed a child pointing skyward alongside details of the flight number and origin, creating a technical and emotional marvel.

9. It Also Sticks

Brand: Araldite

Agency: FCO London

Launched in 1983, the campaign featured a full-sized Hillman Hunter car glued to the side of a 48-sheet poster above London’s South Bank. The car was genuinely attached with Araldite adhesive, proving the product’s strength beyond question.

8. Oops

Brand: O2

Agency: VCCP

Mobile carrier O2 turned accidents into art to promote its free screen replacement service in 2017. VCCP’s team noticed that people often try to swipe cracked screens or mistake scratches on ads for real damage – inspiring the thought: What if the ad itself looked broken?

7. Air Max Day 3D

Brand: Nike

Agency: Cekai

Unveiled in 2022, the campaign used anamorphic illusion technology on a curved digital screen in Shinjuku, Tokyo, one of the world’s busiest intersections. The larger-than-life shoe appeared to hover, rotate, and stretch into the crowd, sparking the 3D billboard craze that persists to this day.

6. Three Billboards Outside Grenfell

Brand: Justice4Grenfell

Agency: BBH London

Created pro bono for the campaign group Justice4Grenfell, the hard-hitting work mounted on vans in London took inspiration from the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, to highlight government inaction after the devastating 2017 tower block fire.

5. Lost Ladder

Brand: Specsavers

Agency: Specsavers

The 2022 campaign intentionally placed billboards in awkward, misaligned positions to dramatize the brand’s iconic line: ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers.’ Each misplacement looked accidental but was meticulously planned, producing one of the most shareable OOH campaigns of the year.

4. There’s Another Side to the Story

Brand: DePaul

Agency: Publicis London

Created for youth homelessness charity Depaul in 2015, the intent was to reveal how quick assumptions can obscure human stories. Text appeared across walls, doorways and underpasses – visible only from certain angles – so that people had to shift perspective to understand the full message.

3. A Perfect Planet

Brand: BBC

Agency: BBC Creative

The 2021 campaign for the BBC’s A Perfect Planet visualized environmental destruction in the most visceral way possible – by setting a billboard ablaze. Mirroring the themes of the series, the charred layers revealed messages about the fragility of nature and humanity’s impact on the planet.

2. Liquid Billboard

Brand: Adidas

Agency: Havas Middle East

Adidas and Havas Middle East made waves in 2021 with a world-first activation promoting the brand’s inclusive swimwear range. The campaign made outdoor media into an act of participation by building a billboard people could actually swim inside.

1. Lightbulb

Brand: The Economist

Agency: BBDO

The Economist tops the list. As a brand known for copy that requires a cognitive leap, this 2005 work from BBDO has the confidence to drop even the words that built its renown, instead opting for a savvy stunt that drives purpose.