The Top 10 OOH Campaigns of Q3 2026

2 days ago

6 min read

Huge shaggy brown mass sits in an NYC street beside gift shops and pedestrians under I ♥ NY signs.

From a man living inside a billboard above Sunset Boulevard to a giant hairball rolling through Manhattan and a wooden horse appearing beneath Nelson’s Column, out of home advertising gave people plenty of reasons to stop and stare this summer, as brands found increasingly inventive ways to make themselves part of the street.

Some of the most memorable ideas worked on a much smaller scale, with a wheel clamp, a stack of storage boxes and a beer bottle you needed binoculars to spot all earning their place in our top 10 OOH campaigns from July, August and September 2026, spanning film, beauty, retail, beer, betting and homeware across the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Mexico and the US.

Carlsberg's Goal Posters turn city walls in London and Manchester into kickabout pitches

Two people juggle a soccer ball in front of a green Carlsberg billboard, with ad text and a gritty brick-wall backdrop.

Carlsberg brought back its "If Carlsberg did" line in July with Goal Posters, green posters printed with a white goal outline and pasted onto walls so passers-by could use them for a game. The first wave went up at Sutton Walk and Shoreditch Tunnels in London and Bridge Street in Manchester, where creators hosted kickabouts in front of Carlsberg's Goal Posters that were filmed for social.

Created by Fold7 as part of Carlsberg's five-year UEFA National Team Football partnership, the idea was rooted in research showing that around a third of adults had not had a kickabout in more than six months. "If Carlsberg did football ads, we'd bring it back within reach," said Lynsey Woods, global brand director at Carlsberg, at the launch of Fold7's Goal Posters activation for Carlsberg.

Lidl US parks a billboard truck outside RYE to sell a $3.99 loaf next to New York's $60 bread

Blue Lidl ad says $60 gets 122 croissants, with people lined up outside a city building and storefront banners.

When New York bakery RYE started selling a $60 rye loaf in September, Lidl US and M+C Saatchi Germany sent a digital billboard truck to park outside it in SoHo. The messages compared the loaf with Lidl's $3.99 bread and pointed out that $60 would also buy 122 of its 49 cent croissants, with a QR code and a route map to Lidl's Grand Street store about 20 minutes' walk away.

Creators joined the truck on the day, and passers-by were posting the Lidl truck before Lidl had shared it itself. The reel was then posted by Lidl's US, German and Belgian accounts, and we covered the full story in our post on Lidl US parking a billboard truck outside RYE.

Paddy Power and BBH Dublin turn Dublin's wheel clamps into comedy billboards

Yellow wheel clamp on parked gray car; text says You Need a Laugh, Paddy Power Comedy Festival, 23rd-26th July.

Paddy Power found the one ad space every Dublin driver is guaranteed to look at. In the run-up to the Paddy Power Comedy Festival at Iveagh Gardens from 23 to 26 July, BBH Dublin stencilled comedy lines onto the yellow clamps fixed to cars across the city, filmed drivers' reactions for social and gave free festival tickets to people who spotted the comedy clamps.

"Wheel clamps have never been known for lifting spirits. Thankfully, the Paddy Power Comedy Festival is," said Dean Finn, senior marketing manager at Paddy Power, and the full BBH Dublin credits for the wheel clamp ads include photography and video by Erica Coburn, Kelan Molloy and Ian Byrne. It was a busy summer for the brand, which also made headlines with its Harry Kane World Cup campaign.

Modelo puts its smallest beer on a giant billboard in Mexico City

Busy city intersection with a fountain, tall modern buildings, palm trees, and a bright blue sky; white building has tiny text.

To launch Modelito, a new 210ml bottle, Cerveza Modelo and GUT Mexico City took over a giant billboard on Paseo de la Reforma and showed the bottle at its actual size, so small that passers-by needed binoculars to spot it. The work kicked off a wider Modelito Makes It Special platform for the new bottle.

"Everyone expects the product to appear huge when it's launched. We saw an opportunity to do exactly the opposite," said Jose Mario Muñoz, executive creative director at GUT Mexico City. The film and stills were produced with Oriental Films and Dopo VFX, and the full set of Modelito executions shows how much empty space surrounds the tiny bottle.

Heinz and Rethink New York finally give Times Square's giant hot dog its ketchup

Times Square billboard shows a giant hot dog display with Heinz ketchup ad, crowds walking below, and red, blue, and yellow signs.

Times Square's giant hot dog sculpture, created by artists Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw and brought back for America's 250th anniversary programming, had mustard but no ketchup. Heinz and Rethink New York fixed that in August with an ad placed directly above the sculpture that made it look as if ketchup was pouring onto the hot dog, without touching the artwork itself, in Heinz's hijack of the Times Square hot dog sculpture.

Rethink worked with the artists on the execution, and Heinz also shared it on its own Instagram. "Every iconic hot dog deserves an equally iconic topping, so we're giving it a finishing touch in true HEINZ fashion," said Jamie Mack, associate director of brand communications at Heinz, and the ad was positioned to line up with the sculpture below.

Degree renames New York's sweatiest subway stations Sweat Central, Boiler Room and Molten Core

Mosaic subway wall sign reading SWEAT CENTRAL and Degreey on white tiled platform wall with floral border.

Degree teamed up with the MTA in July to temporarily rename three of Manhattan's hottest subway stations, using custom signs in the network's mosaic style to rebrand them Sweat Central, Boiler Room and Molten Core. The takeover also carried turnstile signage reading "The Official Deodorant of the Hottest Commutes", with WPP Unite on paid media, Edelman US on PR and Billion Dollar Boy on creators, and the renamed Degree subway signs were designed to sit naturally within the network's existing style.

Street teams handed out free Degree Advanced sticks, each carrying a Tap to Pay code for a free ride, and Degree asked Redditors to suggest more sweaty station nicknames. "Our goal was to celebrate that shared experience, not make the MTA the punchline," said Chris Symmes, head of marketing at Degree.

IKEA Sweden hides real household clutter behind its own billboards

City street with an IKEA ad reading Behind every tidy room, there's SÄMLA from 29, beside a towering stack of clear storage bins.

IKEA Sweden's Tidy Billboards looked like standard home furnishing ads from the front. Behind each one, though, was a carefully stacked wall of SAMLA storage boxes stuffed with toys, clothes, records, electronics and children's drawings, a nod to IKEA research which found that 83% of Swedes have at least one room they struggle to keep tidy.

The billboards were created by Åkestam Holst NoA and rolled out from late August in major Swedish cities, supported by social and digital activity. "Everyday life is messy, then tidy, and then messy again. We think it's nice to show both sides of the story," said art director Tiago Pinho of the IKEA Tidy Billboards. IKEA's storage obsession has a UK cousin too, in IKEA UK's Storage is Sexy dating show.

Universal Pictures places an 11 metre Trojan Horse in Trafalgar Square for The Odyssey

Huge red horse sculpture outside The National Gallery, with visitors taking photos on the steps; The Odyssey on the base.

The day after the London premiere of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, an 11 metre, four tonne Trojan Horse appeared overnight beneath Nelson's Column, set on a sand base and surrounded by a photo exhibition and a walkway of flaming torches around the Trojan Horse. It promoted the film's UK release on 17 July.

The replica was built from the film's own blueprints in steel, polystyrene, resin, fibreglass and metal foil, taking six weeks and a team of 45 to make in Cardiff before travelling to London in sections on three trucks. After a day in Trafalgar Square it moved to Westfield London, White City, where it was free to visit from 16 to 20 July.

K18 and Uncommon roll a giant hairball through New York to launch its hair longevity serum

Giant tangled hair sculpture blocks a NYC street near gift shops and Chinatown signs, with pedestrians and cars around it.

K18 launched its FutureIQ Hair Longevity Serum by rolling a giant ball of hair through Midtown, the West Village, Chinatown and the Seaport in August. The Tumblehair, created by Uncommon Creative Studio New York, represented the billions of hairs New Yorkers shed and finished its journey through New York at Gansevoort Plaza, where visitors could get scalp analyses.

It worked. The K18 hairball delivered more than 1.1 million social media impressions, nearly 30,000 engagements and an estimated $150,000 in earned media value. "It's an absurd visual, but that's exactly the point," said Uncommon creative directors Lauren Cooper and Cara Johnson.

Netflix puts a real man inside a billboard above Sunset Boulevard for The Last House

Billboard-style house facade for Netflix’s The Last House, with THE LAST HOUSE and HOW LONG CAN YOU SURVIVE? against a blue sky.

To launch the thriller The Last House, Netflix and agency Extra Credit built a billboard about 30ft above Sunset Boulevard designed as a house front, with a furnished, air-conditioned living room behind a window. From 6 to 8 August, LA actor Nathan Shoop lived inside it, using binoculars and a whiteboard to communicate with passers-by beneath the tagline "How long can you survive?", turning the Netflix billboard on Sunset Boulevard into a three-day survival test.

News crews filmed it from the air, LA television stations covered it and the Citizen app even sent an alert about a man trapped in a billboard. It was named Ad of the Week by the US trade press, and the film debuted at No. 1 on Netflix with 27.5 million views in three days. Netflix is not the only streamer using billboards as a story in their own right, as Apple TV's Widow's Bay billboard around Cape Cod showed in September.

We loved so many campaigns this quarter that it was very hard to keep it to a few in a roundup! If you want to see campaigns like these on a weekly basis, make sure to sign up for The PR Insider.