Outdoor Advertisements

There are so many great billboards out there that I had a hard time choosing just 3 to write about! Billboard advertisements have a wide reach, and depending on the location, can have a high frequency. Let's say you take the same route to work every morning. This means you would pass the same billboard. And if there's traffic (rush hour perhaps?) you will be even more inclined to really understand the billboard message because you will have more time to look at the ad.

This first billboard is my favorite. It is an advertisement for BIC razors and shows a razor acting as a lawn mower. It really hits home for me because it took me a long long time to actually find a razor that I liked. This advertisement really makes BIC seem like the best because the "shaved" portion of the grass is perfectly straight with no nicks. If I saw this while driving on the highway it would definitely catch my attention, especially since the "shaved" grass is light colored.



This is an advertisement for Woodland Climbing Shoes. It uses a pun by having knots tied in the shoelaces, insinuating that both the shoes (and shoelaces) are strong since you can climb to the top. Since the rest of the advertisement is completely white, the shoelace dangling from the top really stands out. It will catch the attention of someone driving by on a highway, and it will make people focus 100% of their attention on the shoe. The problem with this is that if you don't really know about different shoe brands, and you're driving by quickly, your attention might only focus on the design of the shoe without actually knowing which brand it is.



This billboard shows the effects of super masking tape. It is three-dimensional because a roll of tape is actually sticking out of the middle of the billboard. The technique "show the effects" is used because it appears as though four pieces of tape on each of the corners is actually holding the billboard up. Obviously this is not true (a billboard is MUCH heavier than something tape can hold), but the exaggeration is beneficial and proves that the tape is stronger than most others. Obviously a normal brand of regular scotch tape wouldn't be able to hold up the billboard. Again, the issue of branding is a problem here. What is the brand of this particular strong tape? It is not really made clear, which can be problematic if there are multiple companies that produce this tape. That would mean this advertisement is promoting the product category rather than the product itself.




And an extra bonus, this is just brilliant and hilarious.