Our numbers show that you really liked 15 Creative Street Art Ideas from OakOak, and because numbers don’t lie you should really enjoy a more commercial take on it – I’m talking about the clever designs of street advertising.
The main difference between street art and street advertising ideas is that one can lead you to jail, while the other can even earn you money. Which one you choose is up to you, but from a marketing point of view, street ads have a lot of benefits similar to bus stop advertising and are also an excellent alternative to larger billboard advertising:
- Street Ads Are Always On
- Street Ads Provide Multiple Impressions Per Prospective Customer
- Street Ads Give Precise Geographic Targeting
Your imagination is the limit when it comes to this kind of ambient advertising – you can use virtually anything in your environment. Why not turn a regular crossing into a piece of crosswalk art? Or turn the street itself into a piece of giant installation art. Another great thing about advertising of this kind is that when people get talking about it, half of your viral marketing efforts are already done.
So without any further ado, let’s take a look at 20 of the most creative advertisements and guerrilla marketing ideas placed underneath your feet! As always, we’ve found some serious awareness campaigns that made us stop and think, balanced by some funny advertisements that caught our eye too. Enjoy!
1. Durex Ads
To promote Durex condoms with ribs or with knobs, in some cities in Belgium condoms were painted on paving stones according to the pattern. Check out more from the marketing geniuses at Durex here.
2. Amnesty International
"Thousands are held prisoners for their beliefs in places worse than this. Write until you free them all." Amnesty International. (Advertising Agency: TBWA, Warsaw, Poland)
3. Bin Your Butts
"Don't be a toser, bin your butts." (Advertising Agency: GREY, Melbourne, Australia)
4. Hellhole
"How many more lives will cost $1.25? Please call 010-62357575 to report manhole cover theft so we can put an end to this." (Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, Beijing, China)
5. Water Is Life
In 2008 the town of Drachten in the Netherlands got a heavy makeover when Henk Hofstra painted a kilometer-long strip of the main road a pale blue color. His creative idea demanded 4000 liters of paint, and according to the author, this cool design project is a monument to the river, to remind citizens that once there was water on the ground of the road.
6. McDonald's: McFries Pedestrian Crossing
Advertising Agency: TBWA Switzerland
7. FedEx: Kinko
Agency: BBDO, New York, USA
8. Aseema: Make Every Child Count
Advertising Agency: 141 Sercon, Mumbai, India
9. Symphony Crossing
Advertising Agency: unknown
10. ACA-M: Zebra Crossing Memorial
"1⁄4 of car accident victims are pedestrians" (Advertising Agency: Draft FCB, Lisbon, Portugal)
11. South Africa Tourism: Zebra
Ambient advertisement idea for South Africa Tourism. Zebra Crossing signs around traffic lights in Mumbai were painted to look like the stripes of a real zebra. (Agency: unknown)
12. 3D Ads By Julian Beever
These chalk art drawings look 3D when viewed from the right angle! Check out more of Julian Beever's street art here.
13. Altschul Orthodontics: Crosswalk
Advertising Agency: Marked for Trade, USA
14. Bubbles Hair Salon
Advertising Agency: Orchard Advertising, Chennai, India
15. Shopping Curitiba: Barcode
Advertising Agency: OpusMúltipla, Curitiba, Brazi
16. Vijay Sales
Advertising Agency: unknown
17. Maximum Ride: The Kids Who Could Fly
Maximum Ride is a series about a group of children who can fly. To launch the latest book, we created a large ground decal that showed Aucklanders what it was like to stand on the edge of a building and jump. (Advertising Agency: Colenso BBDO, Auckland, New Zealand)
18. Meister Proper
Agency: Grey Worldwide, Germany
19. Canon Powershot S1 Street Ad
The idea was to illustrate the product's main benefit by using parking posts disguised as cameras. The mechanism simulates the movement of a powerful zoom lens. (Advertising Agency: TBWA, Paris, France)
20. Folgers Coffee: Manhole
“Hey City That Never Sleeps. Wake up.” is another creative ad by Folgers coffee. This time it went wrong, though. They are probably trying to tell us that their coffee smells like the steam coming from the manhole. Seriously, what were they thinking?