Category
Print & Outdoor
Headlines, posters and art direction. The foundations of modern advertising concept and copywriting, plus the pages and billboards that still stop people today.
2020s
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2024Recycle Me
Coca-Cola let its agency do the one thing brand guidelines forbid: crush the logo.
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2022A British Original
Launched in October 2022 as British Airways' first work with Uncommon Creative Studio, it took travel's dullest box-ticking question, “What is the…
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2020Courage Is Beautiful
Close-up portraits of doctors and nurses, faces marked and creased by long shifts inside masks and protective gear, above three words: "Courage is…
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2020Moldy Whopper
Fast-food advertising has always shown burgers at their most glistening; in 2020 Burger King showed its Whopper rotting.
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2020Shutter Ads
When Covid closures left bars dark, Heineken stopped buying conventional billboards and rented the bars instead.
2010s
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2018Follow the Arches
The golden arches, cropped so tightly they turn into road signs.
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2018FCK ("We're Sorry")
The best corporate apology ever printed.
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2017Pass the Heinz
Half a century late, Heinz finally bought Don Draper's pitch.
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2016Thanks 2016, It's Been Weird
The campaign that turned a database into a copywriter.
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2015McWhopper (an open letter to McDonald's)
Burger King's peace offering to its oldest enemy, made in public.
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2015Shot on iPhone ("World Gallery")
The largest photography exhibition ever mounted — as an ad campaign.
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2014GAYTMs
For the 2014 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, its principal partner ANZ turned ten of its cash machines on Sydney's busiest streets into GAYTMs,…
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2013Magic of Flying (#lookup)
A billboard that looked up.
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2013Only for Children
A street poster with a second, hidden audience.
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2013People for Smarter Cities
Posters that do a job.
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2013The Autocomplete Truth
Close-up portraits of women whose mouths are covered by a Google search box, filled with the search engine's own suggestions for phrases such as…
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A billboard that turns air into clean drinking water is ingenuity in action.UTEC (University of Engineering and Technology)2013
The Billboard That Makes Water
A university recruitment ad that proves its claim by working.
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Coke HandsCoca-Cola2012
Coke Hands
The poster is Coca-Cola's signature white ribbon, redrawn on a field of red as two arms meeting in the middle, one hand passing a bottle of Coke to…
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Don't buy this jacket.Patagonia2011
Don't Buy This Jacket
On Black Friday 2011, the biggest shopping day in the American calendar, Patagonia bought a full page in The New York Times to tell readers not to…
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Heaven and HellSamsonite2011
Heaven and Hell
One long frieze, rendered like a classical stone relief, tells two stories at once.
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2011Unhate
World leaders kissing their adversaries: Barack Obama and Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy,…
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Be stupid.Diesel2010
Be Stupid
A fashion brand that told its customers to stop being sensible.
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2010Music. See What It's Made Of.
From a distance the ads are portraits of Bono, Eminem, Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears and Marilyn Manson.
2000s
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2009The Trillion Dollar Campaign
Zimbabwe's hyperinflation had made its banknotes worth less than the paper they were printed on, so TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris printed the ads on the money.
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2008Hope
The defining image of the 2008 US election was not made by the campaign.
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2006Sundial
A billboard that tells the time.
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ImagineLEGO2005
Imagine (Periscope)
Two bricks and one word.
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2004Lightbulb
The Economist made its name in outdoor with witty copy; this poster dropped the words altogether.
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Small but tough. Polo.Volkswagen2003
Cops
A squad of American cops is pinned down in a street shoot-out, and every one of them has picked the same cover: not their own patrol car but a…
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2003iPod Silhouettes
Black silhouettes dancing against vivid flat colour, with only one detail picked out: a white iPod and its white earphone cord.
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Beach, Bar, PoolClub 18-302002
Beach, Bar, Pool
Three crowded, sun-drenched holiday scenes, on a beach, at a bar and around a pool, look like ordinary package-tour snapshots.
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Let's Motor.MINI USA (BMW Group)2002
Let's Motor (MINI USA launch)
How do you launch a tiny British car in the land of the SUV without a television budget?
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PiercingOslo Piercing Studio2001
Piercing
A small Oslo piercing studio with almost no budget won the first Outdoor Grand Prix ever awarded at Cannes.
1990s
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New Labour, New DangerThe Conservative Party (UK)1996
New Labour, New Danger ("Demon Eyes")
Demonic red eyes peer through a gap in red curtains above the line "New Labour, New Danger".
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1995Bob ("It's Party Time When Bob Drives")
Instead of frightening drivers, Belgium gave the sober driver a name.
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1995Eat Mor Chikin
Two renegade cows, one standing on the other's back with a paintbrush, vandalising a billboard in the name of self-preservation: "EAT MOR CHIKIN".
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Milk. What a surprise!National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board (MilkPEP)1995
The Milk Mustache ("Milk. What a Surprise!")
Famous faces with a white film on the upper lip, lit and posed like magazine covers.
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Power is nothing without control.Pirelli1994
Power Is Nothing Without Control (Carl Lewis)
The fastest man in the world, crouched in the starting blocks, wearing red stiletto heels.
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Hello Boys.Wonderbra (Playtex)1994
Hello Boys
The poster that proved outdoor could out-punch television on a fraction of the budget.
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United Colors of Benetton.United Colors of Benetton1991
New Born Baby ("Giusy")
The photograph that forced advertising to ask what it is allowed to show.
1980s
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Smooth character.Camel (R.J. Reynolds Tobacco)1988
Joe Camel ("Smooth Character")
A smirking cartoon camel in sunglasses.
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"I never read The Economist." Management trainee. Aged 42.The Economist1988
"I never read The Economist." Management trainee. Aged 42.
Nine words that flatter the reader by threatening them.
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Perception. Reality.Rolling Stone1985
Perception. Reality.
The cleanest two-word argument in print advertising.
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It also sticks handles to teapots.Araldite1983
It Also Sticks Handles to Teapots
The ultimate product demonstration: a real yellow Ford Cortina glued to a billboard on London's Cromwell Road, with the understated line "It also…
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(No copy — a slash in purple silk, plus the government health warning.)Silk Cut (Gallaher)1983
Silk Cut (the purple silk)
Advertising stripped to a pure visual pun.
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Reassuringly expensive.Stella Artois1982
Reassuringly Expensive
Most brands hide a premium price; Stella Artois made it the selling point.
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1981Myriam ("Le 2 septembre, j'enlève le haut")
France's most famous teaser, and an advertisement for advertising itself.
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Absolut Perfection.Absolut Vodka1980
Absolut Perfection
One bottle, two words, twenty-five years.
1970s
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Can West Wear East?Parco1979
Can West Wear East?
Faye Dunaway, in an Issey Miyake satin robe and headdress, spreads her arms around two small Japanese girls dressed in red, a band of red pigment…
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Labour isn't working. Britain's better off with the Conservatives.The Conservative Party (UK)1978
Labour Isn't Working
The poster that brought modern advertising techniques to British politics.
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Surreal Gold Pack PostersBenson & Hedges (Gallaher)1977
Surreal Gold Pack Posters
Posters with no people, no slogan and almost no words, just a gold pack hidden inside a baffling picture.
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Chi mi ama mi segua.Jesus Jeans (Maglificio Calzificio Torinese)1973
Chi mi ama mi segua ("He who loves me, follows me")
A close-up of a model's behind in tiny denim shorts, with a line from the Gospels laid across it: "Chi mi ama mi segua", he who loves me, follows me.
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Girl or boy, two is enough.Singapore Family Planning and Population Board1972
Stop at Two ("Girl or Boy, Two Is Enough")
Two little sisters, one visibly older than the other, share an apple under an umbrella.
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Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?Health Education Council (UK)1970
Pregnant Man ("Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?")
A man, hand resting on a heavily pregnant belly, and a question aimed squarely at his half of the population.
1960s
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1966The Amul Girl Topicals ("Utterly Butterly Delicious")
Since 1966 a small girl in a polka-dot dress has been commenting on the news from Amul's billboards.
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Avis is only No. 2 in rent a cars. So we try harder.Avis1963
We Try Harder ("Avis is only No. 2")
The founding document of underdog positioning.
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Tokyo 1964Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games Organising Committee1962
The Start of the Sprinters' Dash (Tokyo 1964)
Six sprinters explode off the line against pure black, with the Olympic rings and "TOKYO 1964" in gold beneath.
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You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's.Levy's (Henry S. Levy & Sons)1961
You Don't Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy's
A Brooklyn bakery wanted New Yorkers of every background to buy its rye, so Doyle Dane Bernbach put them on the subway walls.
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Punt e MesCarpano (Punt e Mes)1960
Punt e Mes
Punt e Mes is Piedmontese for 'a point and a half', named, legend says, after a Turin stockbroker's order for vermouth with half a measure of bitter…
1950s
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1959Think Small
The ad that started advertising's creative revolution.
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1958"At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock"
The most famous headline in advertising — and Ogilvy didn't write it.
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1957Does She... or Doesn't She?
A double entendre that destigmatized an entire product category.
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1956El Toro de Osborne (The Osborne Bull)
A giant black bull standing alone on a Spanish hilltop, with not a word written on it.
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Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country.Marlboro (Philip Morris)1955
The Marlboro Man
The most consequential repositioning in advertising history — studied today as both masterwork and warning.
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The man in the Hathaway shirt.C.F. Hathaway1951
The Man in the Hathaway Shirt
A 50-cent drugstore eyepatch that built an agency empire.
1940s
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I dreamed I went shopping in my Maidenform braMaidenform1949
I Dreamed I Went Shopping in My Maidenform Bra
A woman stands in a shop, impeccably dressed except that above the waist she wears only her bra: "I dreamed I went shopping in my Maidenform bra."…
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Monsavon au laitMonsavon1949
Monsavon au lait
A cow, a bar of soap and the sight gag that made Raymond Savignac.
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A diamond is forever.De Beers1947
A Diamond Is Forever
Four words that invented a social custom.
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1944Smokey Bear ("Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires")
The longest-running public service advertising campaign in United States history — more than 80 years and counting.
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1943Use It Up – Wear It Out – Make It Do!
The American home front's thrift ethic in one domestic scene.
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1943We Can Do It!
One of the most famous images of the Second World War began as a staff notice.
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1943When You Ride Alone You Ride with Hitler!
A government request to share car journeys, turned into a ghost story in a single frame.
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1942Is Your Journey Really Necessary?
Britain's wartime railways were needed for troops and supplies, and coal and petrol were needed for the war effort, so the public had to be…
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1942Loose Lips Might Sink Ships
"Loose lips might sink ships" belonged to the security-of-information campaign that the War Advertising Council, forerunner of today's Ad Council,…
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1942Someone Talked!
A drowning sailor, only his head and one huge outstretched forearm above black water, points straight out of the poster at whoever let the secret…
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1941Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases
In October 1941 the Ministry of Health opened an autumn campaign against colds and flu built on one rhyming line: "Coughs and sneezes spread…
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1941Join the ATS ("The Blonde Bombshell")
Abram Games, then a corporal in the Royal Engineers, set out in 1941 to fix the dowdy image of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch…
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Careless talk costs livesMinistry of Information (UK)1940
Careless Talk Costs Lives
When the Ministry of Information set out to stop wartime gossip, the Punch cartoonist Cyril Kenneth Bird, who signed himself Fougasse, convinced…
1930s
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1939Dig for Victory
Before the Second World War Britain imported around 55 million tons of food a year, and German U-boats went straight for the merchant ships carrying…
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1939Keep Calm and Carry On
One of Britain's best-known posters was barely seen in the war it was made for.
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All Roads Lead to SwitzerlandSwiss National Tourist Office1935
All Roads Lead to Switzerland
The Swiss National Tourist Office's first poster for motor touring, and a landmark in putting the camera to work for advertising.
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NormandieCompagnie Générale Transatlantique (French Line)1935
Normandie
An ocean liner drawn like a monument.
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1935The Guinness Toucan ("Just think what Toucan do")
The bird that made a stout lovable.
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Dubo, Dubon, DubonnetDubonnet1932
Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet
A poster that behaves like a strip of film.
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Santa Claus (Haddon Sundblom's Coca-Cola Santas)Coca-Cola1931
Santa Claus (Haddon Sundblom's Coca-Cola Santas)
The Santa much of the world pictures, warm, plump, rosy-cheeked and grandfatherly, owes a great deal to a soft-drink campaign.
1920s
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1929The Pause That Refreshes
Launched in 1929, months before the Depression, "The pause that refreshes" sold five cents of syrup and water as a daily ritual of restoration — a…
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Nord ExpressNord Express (Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and partner railways)1927
Nord Express
No passengers, no scenery, no destination: Cassandre's poster for the Nord Express, the international express linking London and Paris with…
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1926They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano
One of the most imitated headlines in advertising began as a mail-order ad for piano lessons by post.
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1925Often a Bridesmaid but Never a Bride
The ad that turned bad breath into a medical condition.
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Within this vale / of toil / and sin / your head grows bald / but not your chin — Burma-ShaveBurma-Shave1925
Burma-Shave Roadside Verses
America's first great media invention: sequential storytelling at driving speed.
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Nowhere else but Mossel'prom!Mossel'prom1923
Mossel'prom Cooking Oil: Nowhere Else but Mossel'prom
What happens when the avant-garde lands an advertising account.
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1923Somewhere West of Laramie
In 1923 car advertising meant specifications and prices.
1910s
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Soaring to Success! Daily Herald – the Early BirdDaily Herald1919
Soaring to Success! Daily Herald – the Early Bird
Britain's landmark modernist poster began life as an orphan.
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1919The Instrument of the Immortals
Steinway found advertising distasteful and did little of it, until a young N.W.
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1919Within the Curve of a Woman's Arm
The ad that taught American women to worry about sweat.
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1918If Ye Break Faith – We Shall Not Sleep (Buy Victory Bonds)
Canada's 1918 Victory Loan poster turned a war poem into a sales line.
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1917Fate tutti il vostro dovere! (Fourth National War Loan)
Italy's fourth National War Loan of 1917 borrowed Britain's most famous recruiting gesture and pointed it at savers.
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_-_C._E._Chambers_LCCN2002720472.jpg/960px-Food_will_win_the_war_-_You_came_here_seeking_freedom,_now_you_must_help_to_preserve_it_-_Wheat_is_needed_for_the_allies_-_waste_nothing)_-_C._E._Chambers_LCCN2002720472.jpg)
1917Food Will Win the War
Herbert Hoover's new U.S.
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1917I Want You for the Navy
Howard Chandler Christy took the most imitated line in recruiting and changed who was saying it.
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1917I Want You for U.S. Army
Uncle Sam's stare and outstretched finger first appeared on the cover of Leslie's Weekly in July 1916, above the question "What Are You Doing for…
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1917It Is Nice in the Surf, but What About the Men in the Trenches?
Australia relied entirely on volunteers for its First World War army, so its recruiting posters had to persuade and shame rather than order, and…
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1917Wake Up, America! Civilization Calls Every Man, Woman and Child!
The United States declared war on 6 April 1917, and thirteen days later New York staged "Wake Up, America" Day with this poster by James Montgomery…
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_On_les_aura_!_-_affiche_-_Abel_Faivre_-_btv1b9013991f.jpg/960px-2e_Emprunt_de_la_D%C3%A9fense_nationale._Souscrivez_(1916)_On_les_aura_!_-_affiche_-_Abel_Faivre_-_btv1b9013991f.jpg)
1916On les aura! (Second National Defence Loan)
France paid for much of the First World War by borrowing from its citizens, and this poster sold the second National Defence Loan, launched in…
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1915Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?
A British recruitment poster that sells enlistment by staging a moment from the future.
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1915The Penalty of Leadership
A car advertisement that never mentions the car.
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1915Women of Britain Say – ‘Go!’
Instead of addressing men, this 1915 recruitment poster recruits the people closest to them to do the persuading.
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1914Lord Kitchener Wants You ("Your Country Needs You")
The pointing finger every recruitment ad since has borrowed.
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1911A Skin You Love to Touch
Until 1911, soap ads mostly showed soap.
1900s
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1909Le Thermogène
A green-clad Pierrot hugs a wad of Thermogène to his chest and breathes a plume of fire, his shadow looming across a dark ground beneath the brand…
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Hermann Scherrer. Breechesmaker. Sporting-Tailor.Hermann Scherrer (tailor, Munich)1907
Hermann Scherrer: Breechesmaker, Sporting-Tailor
A young rider in cap and waistcoat strides toward us with saddle and crop, a bulldog at his heel, and the loudest thing on the wall is his checked…
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PriesterPriester (match manufacturer)1906
Priester
Two matchsticks and one word.
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1903Chocolat Klaus
A green-clad rider on a scarlet horse, a black void and the brand name: nothing in Leonetto Cappiello's poster depicts chocolate, and that was the…
1890s
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Nunc est bibendum!Michelin1898
Nunc est bibendum!
The birth of a mascot still working more than a century later.
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1896JOB
A cigarette-paper advert that fixed the look of Art Nouveau glamour.
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1896Rowntree's Elect Cocoa
Three words and almost nothing else.
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1893Divan Japonais
Hired by Édouard Fournier to fill his newly redecorated Montmartre café-concert, Toulouse-Lautrec advertised the Divan Japonais by advertising its…
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1891Moulin Rouge – La Goulue
The poster that turned a dance hall's season launch into a street sensation.
1880s
About Print & Outdoor
The best print ads, posters and billboards ever made, from 1880s lithographs to interactive digital billboards. This is where modern advertising's core skills were invented and refined: the headline, the visual idea and persuasive long-form copy.
Print and outdoor work has to land in seconds, with no sound or motion to help. The classics here show how: a single striking image, a headline that makes you read the copy, or a billboard that does something no billboard has done before.
What to look for
- Headline and visual working together, as in Volkswagen's "Think Small".
- Long copy that sells, from David Ogilvy's Rolls-Royce page to John Caples's "They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano".
- The poster as art, from Toulouse-Lautrec and Cappiello to Cassandre.
- Outdoor as an event: billboards that make drinking water or tell the time.
Work published in 1930 or earlier is shown as a public-domain scan from a museum, library or archive.