Hello Boys

Why it works

The poster that proved outdoor could out-punch television on a fraction of the budget. Eva Herzigová looking down at her own Wonderbra-assisted cleavage, two words of copy — and a £150,000 media spend that generated an estimated £5 million in free press coverage, urban legends about distracted drivers, and two decades of debate about whether it was empowerment or objectification (Herzigová has defended it as the former). Shot by Ellen von Unwerth — a female photographer's gaze, unusual for the category — and written by TBWA's Nigel Rose, it was voted the UK's most iconic outdoor image in a 2011 industry poll, and the V&A holds the poster in its permanent collection. It is studied for scale, wit, earned media before the term existed, and the cultural argument it still provokes.