Billboards

The billboard — from hand-pasted bill posters and painted brick walls to the roadside giants of Route 66, the neon blaze of Times Square, the campaigns that became icons, and today's towering LED spectaculars. A visual history of the biggest advertising medium ever built, all the way back to the 'bill posters' whose boards gave the trade paper Billboard its name.

A chronological documentary of 73 moments spanning 1850–2026 on Loreline.

last updated 2026-07-16

1. 1850-01-01 — The playbill and the poster. Theaters and circuses papered towns with posters; the demand for space created the trade of the bill sticker.
2. 1890-01-01 — The circus and the giant poster. Barnum and the great circuses pioneered the spectacular multi-sheet poster pasted across whole barns and walls.
3. 1894-01-01 — The first Coca-Cola wall sign. Coca-Cola painted its first wall advertisement in Cartersville, Georgia, in 1894 — a sign still visible today.
4. 1935-01-01 — Times Square in its neon heyday. Through the 1930s and '40s, Times Square became the world's most famous canvas of light and advertising.
5. 1941-01-01 — The Camel cigarette 'smoke ring' sign. From 1941, a Times Square billboard blew real smoke rings for a Camel cigarettes ad — a spectacular of its age.
6. 1959-01-01 — Volkswagen — Think Small. DDB's 1959 'Think Small' remade advertising with wit and white space; it topped Ad Age's century list.
7. 1960-01-01 — The Times Square 'spectacular'. The giant animated 'spectaculars' of Times Square combined lights, motion and even waterfalls into advertising theater.
8. 1969 — The Marlboro Man. From 1954, the rugged Marlboro Man rode across billboards worldwide in one of advertising's most iconic campaigns.
9. 1970-01-01 — The hand-painted rock boards of Sunset Strip. From the 1960s, giant hand-painted billboards for rock albums towered over LA's Sunset Strip — art as advertising.
10. 1977 — Avis — We Try Harder. Avis's 1962 'We're number two, we try harder' turned a weakness into an iconic campaign.
11. 1979 — Silk Cut — the purple silk. Banned from naming the product, Silk Cut ran years of cryptic purple-silk billboards — advertising as riddle.
12. 1981 — The Milk Tray Man. Cadbury's daring 'all because the lady loves Milk Tray' man became a British advertising legend.
13. 1984 — The OXO family. The long-running OXO family adverts became a warm fixture of British living rooms.
14. 1987-01-01 — Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet. Hamlet's 'Happiness is...' ads, scored to Bach's Air on the G String, are treasured British classics.
15. 1989-10-30 — The Energizer Bunny. The drumming pink bunny that 'keeps going and going' became a permanent ad icon from 1989.
16. 1993-11-29 — Got Milk?. The 1993 'Got Milk?' campaign and its milk-mustache billboards became an American institution.
17. 1994-01-01 — Wonderbra — Hello Boys. Eva Herzigová's 1994 'Hello Boys' Wonderbra billboards famously stopped traffic across Britain.
18. 1995-01-29 — Budweiser frogs. Bud's croaking frogs became one of the most quoted ad campaigns of the '90s.
19. 1995 — Subvertising and culture jamming. Activists and artists hijack billboards — the Billboard Liberation Front and Adbusters turn ads against themselves.
20. 1997-09-28 — Apple — Think Different. Apple's 1997 'Think Different' billboards, featuring Einstein, Gandhi and Dylan, relaunched the brand.
21. 1999-01-01 — Guinness — Surfer. Guinness's 'Good things come to those who wait' surfer ad topped polls as the greatest of all time.
22. 2005-01-01 — The rock-album Sunset boards. Record labels paid for towering hand-painted Sunset Strip boards for albums from the Beatles to Guns N' Roses.
23. 2005 — See Rock City. Painted on hundreds of barn roofs from the 1930s, 'See Rock City' became one of the most famous roadside campaigns. The subject dates from 1935; this photograph was taken in 2005.
24. 2008 — The neon of Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Strip turned the illuminated sign into an art form — the cowboy Vegas Vic and a desert of neon. The subject dates from 1955; this photograph was taken in 2008.
25. 2008-08-14 — The Great White Way. By the 1900s, electric signs blazed so brightly over Broadway that Times Square earned the name 'the Great White Way'.
26. 2009 — Ghost signs. Faded painted-wall ads survive on old buildings for a century — the 'ghost signs' of a lost advertising age. The subject dates from 1910; this photograph was taken in 2009.
27. 2010-01-01 — Banksy and the billboard. Street artists from Banksy on have used the billboard as a canvas for satire and dissent.
28. 2010-02-04 — Old Spice — The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. Old Spice's 2010 campaign became a viral phenomenon and revived a dying brand.
29. 2012 — The Golden Arches. McDonald's Golden Arches became one of the most recognized signs on Earth, glowing over roadsides worldwide. The subject dates from 1962; this photograph was taken in 2012.
30. 2012 — Piccadilly Lights, London. London's Piccadilly Circus has carried illuminated advertising since 1908 — Britain's answer to Times Square. The subject dates from 1930; this photograph was taken in 2012.
31. 2014-01-01 — The all-digital Times Square. By the 2010s Times Square's last painted signs were gone, replaced by vast LED screens like the block-long Nasdaq tower.
32. 2014-04-18 — The wall dogs and painted walls. 'Wall dogs' hand-painted enormous advertisements directly onto brick, high above the street.
33. 2015-01-01 — Times Square today. Modern Times Square is a canyon of screens — a permanent, dazzling storm of digital advertising.
34. 2015-02-03 — Pepsi vs Coke — the cola wars. The billboard cola wars — Pepsi and Coke sniping at each other on giant boards — became advertising theater.
35. 2015-05-21 — I ❤ NY. Milton Glaser's 1977 'I ❤ NY' logo became the most imitated and beloved piece of civic advertising ever.
36. 2015 — The Hollywood Sign. Erected in 1923 as an ad for a housing development ('Hollywoodland'), it became the world's most famous sign. The subject dates from 1923; this photograph was taken in 2015.
37. 2016-01-01 — Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo. Tokyo's Shibuya Crossing wraps its crowds in giant screens and sound — Asia's great advertising spectacle.
38. 2017 — The Economist — white-out-of-red. The Economist's witty white-on-red poster campaign became one of advertising's most admired.
39. 2017-10-01 — The Coca-Cola Times Square sign. Coca-Cola's Times Square sign has glowed in some form since 1920 — one of the longest-running billboards in the world.
40. 2017-10-26 — The Piccadilly Lights, reborn. The single vast 2017 Piccadilly screen can show one ad or split into many — Europe's most famous digital board.
41. 2017-10-26 — The new Piccadilly Lights. In 2017 Piccadilly Circus switched to a single vast ultra-HD screen, ending a century of separate signs.
42. 2017-11-10 — Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The 2017 film made three roadside billboards the engine of a story — proof of the board's hold on the imagination.
43. 2018-01-01 — McDonald's — Follow the Arches. McDonald's 2018 'Follow the Arches' used cropped pieces of its logo as directional billboards — pure icon.
44. 2018-01-01 — The Burj Khalifa light shows. Dubai turned the world's tallest building into the world's largest billboard with vast LED light shows.
45. 2018-01-01 — Billboards that changed policy. From the Three Billboards-inspired real protests to Grenfell and #MeToo, activists reclaimed the billboard.
46. 2018-01-01 — Projection and building-sized ads. Advertisers now project campaigns onto whole buildings and landmarks, turning architecture into a screen.
47. 2018-06-15 — 'Bil's boards' — the magazine Billboard. In 1894 a trade paper for the bill-posting industry launched as Billboard Advertising — the boards gave the magazine its name.
48. 2018 — Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas. Betty Willis's 1959 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas' sign became a beloved American icon. The subject dates from 1959; this photograph was taken in 2018.
49. 2018-09-09 — Nike and the Just Do It boards. Nike turned athletes into billboard-sized icons and made 'Just Do It' one of the most recognized slogans on Earth.
50. 2018-10-22 — Lady Bird Johnson and the Highway Beautification Act. In 1965 the Highway Beautification Act, championed by Lady Bird Johnson, sought to tame the billboards along America's roads.
51. 2018-12-01 — Spotify's data billboards. Spotify's witty data-driven billboards ('Dear person who played Sorry 42 times...') became a viral tradition.
52. 2019-01-01 — The world's biggest billboards. From Saudi Arabia's record-breaking boards to Dubai's building-sized screens, the billboard keeps growing.
53. 2019-01-01 — Netflix takes over the boards. As streaming boomed, Netflix and its rivals bought up whole cities of billboards to launch their shows.
54. 2019 — Burma-Shave's roadside poems. From 1927, Burma-Shave lined the highways with sequential rhyming signs — the most beloved billboards in America. The subject dates from 1927; this photograph was taken in 2019.
55. 2019 — Protest and the civil-rights sign. Hand-lettered signs and boards carried the messages of the civil-rights movement into public space. The subject dates from 1968; this photograph was taken in 2019.
56. 2019 — The billboards of Route 66. The Mother Road bristled with hand-painted motel, diner and attraction signs luring travelers off the highway. The subject dates from 1950; this photograph was taken in 2019.
57. 2020-01-01 — The billboard as protest. From civil-rights messages to modern political and social campaigns, the billboard has always been a way to shout in public.
58. 2020-06-15 — Mr. Peanut over Times Square. The Planters Mr. Peanut spectacular, top-hatted and monocled, tipped his hat over Times Square for decades.
59. 2021-07-31 — 'Guns Are Prohibited' and message boards. Public-service and message billboards — from wartime propaganda to health warnings — have long shaped opinion.
60. 2022-03-17 — FedEx — the fast-talker. FedEx's 1982 fast-talking-man ad became one of the most famous of the decade.
61. 2023-12-23 — Marlboro Country. The vast Western vistas of 'Marlboro Country' filled billboards for decades until tobacco ads were banned.
62. 2024-06-15 — The bill posters. Before printing presses ran the world, bill posters pasted playbills and notices on every fence and wall — the original outdoor advertising.
63. 2024-06-15 — The standardized billboard. Around 1900 the industry standardized the poster panel, and the modern rentable billboard was born.
64. 2024-06-15 — The Glico Running Man, Osaka. Osaka's Glico Running Man sign, glowing over the Dotonbori canal since 1935, is one of Japan's most famous.
65. 2024-07-08 — Absolut Vodka's bottle. The Absolut Vodka campaign turned a bottle shape into hundreds of witty billboards over two decades.
66. 2024-07-15 — The Cup Noodles steam sign. A Times Square billboard that puffed real steam from a giant noodle cup ran for years as a beloved spectacular.
67. 2024-12-05 — The first digital billboards. At the turn of the century, LED panels began replacing paper and paint — the billboard learned to change and move.
68. 2025-01-14 — Benetton's shock images. Toscani's Benetton boards — a dying AIDS patient, a newborn — made the billboard a site of moral argument.
69. 2025-03-29 — Benetton's shock billboards. Oliviero Toscani's United Colors of Benetton billboards courted controversy and redefined provocative advertising.
70. 2026-04-02 — The Kodak Colorama. From 1950 the giant Kodak Colorama photos filled Grand Central Terminal — the world's largest photographs.
71. 2026-06-08 — The roadside billboard. As Americans took to the automobile, billboards marched along every highway to catch the passing driver.
72. 2026-06-11 — Coca-Cola's spectaculars. Coca-Cola has owned some of the most famous billboards in history, from Times Square to painted walls worldwide.
73. 2026-06-15 — The Neon Museum boneyard. Las Vegas's Neon Museum preserves the great dead signs of the Strip in its famous 'boneyard'.

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