Make a Billboard With Your Own Two Feet
Or, what happens when you turn over ownership of an ad campaign to the people its speaking to.
Love 2 Run, a running store in Dothan, Alabama, had a blank white vinyl (with masked guides for text) and a parking lot. We gave them a hose, buckets of washable tempera paint, and an invitation: bring your old running shoes. Let’s get messy and see what happens.
How it all went down
People showed up. They dipped their beat-up sneakers in paint, stomped their print onto the vinyl, and handed the shoes off to Sneaks4Good, where they got a second life as playground mulch.
Everyone walked out with a discount on a new pair of kicks. Durden Outdoor Displays shot the whole thing—drone shots, time-lapse, the install crew hoisting the finished vinyl 40 feet in the air.
And that vinyl is now a billboard that says “WE RUN DOTHAN” in hundreds of literal footprints—the very footprints of the people who run Dothan.
Nobody was sold to. Nobody sat through a pitch. They just showed up, left their mark, and became part of something that’s still dominating the space over the highway. Something they can be proud of. Something they’ll likely brag on to anyone that happens to be with them in the car as they pass it.
That’s the whole idea. A billboard is real estate. What you build on it is up to you. Most brands build a sign. A few build a moment. Fewer still build something the town made themselves.
We’ll take fewer, every time.
Sound like somethin’ you’d dip your toes in?
We’re Up To Something—a two-man OOH creative shop that builds billboard experiences for brands of all sizes. If you've got something to say, stop whispering into the wind with boring billboards, let’s talk.
