YOU DO NOT NEED A COMPANY TO BUY A BILLBOARD.

Yes, the boring answer works too. Somebody has to pay for the interesting ones.

• —your logo
• —your startup nobody has heard of yet
• —your app, with the QR code that proves it exists
• —your restaurant
• —your barber shop
• —your gym, in January, obviously
• —your law firm, in a font that suggests you win
• —your accountancy practice, in a font that suggests you are careful
• —your bakery
• —your tattoo studio
• —your record label
• —your architecture studio
• —your consultancy, whatever it is you actually do
• —your dental practice, teeth optional
• —your driving school
• —your plumbing business, with the number that actually answers
• —your removals company
• —your agency, in Helvetica, because of course
• —your NGO
• —your football club

No VAT number required. Paper cannot read a company registry.

• —your book, self-published, 40 copies sold, deserves better
• —your album
• —your podcast, and yes it will be a podcast
• —your newsletter with 300 subscribers
• —your Etsy shop
• —your ceramics
• —your prints
• —your photography portfolio
• —your freelance rate card
• —your CV, with a QR code, aimed at one specific company's window
• —your Twitch channel
• —your OnlyFans — no, actually, read the rules at the bottom
• —your open-source project asking for maintainers
• —your video game's wishlist page
• —your short film screening on one night only
• —your comic
• —your band's next gig
• —your yoga class
• —your dog-walking service
• —your sourdough starter, which you have named

The largest and most interesting category. No product, no funnel, no call to action.

• —your name
• —your face
• —your handwriting, scanned
• —the word BABY, in enormous letters, for no reason
• —a single full stop
• —your favourite number
• —a colour you like
• —the exact shade of your childhood bedroom
• —a word in a language nobody in Milan speaks
• —your grandmother's saying
• —a line from a poem you are allowed to reproduce
• —your own bad drawing
• —a doodle from a meeting
• —your signature
• —your fingerprint
• —a QR code that leads to a photograph of a sandwich
• —a QR code that leads to nothing, forever
• —the coordinates of somewhere you have never been
• —a date that means nothing to anybody else
• —the number of days you have been sober
• —a reminder to yourself, visible from a bus
• —a shape
• —nothing but your background colour, deliberately

Historically the most photographed category of outdoor advertising, and the most expensive apology ever devised.

• —a proposal
• —an anniversary
• —a birthday, in a size that cannot be ignored
• —a name inside a heart, like a school desk but six metres up
• —the day you met
• —an apology, unspecific enough to be dignified
• —an apology, specific enough to actually work
• —a thank-you to somebody who will never see it
• —a thank-you to somebody who definitely will
• —your parents' names
• —your child's name, spelled the way they insist on spelling it
• —a message to your future self, dated
• —an inside joke, printed at enormous cost
• —a nickname nobody else uses
• —an invitation, with the venue and the time
• —'sorry about the thing'
• —'yes, still'
• —'come home'
• —a photograph of two people, unlabelled
• —the answer to a question somebody asked you years ago

You raised this yourself. You were right to.

• —your cat
• —your cat, again, larger
• —your cat, looking mildly disappointed
• —your dog
• —your dog mid-jump, slightly out of focus, which is correct
• —your dog's name in the font of a luxury fashion house
• —your rabbit
• —your horse
• —your parrot
• —your goldfish, in memoriam
• —your hamster's wheel-time personal best
• —a cow, unrelated to any product
• —a pigeon, photographed in Milan, returned to Milan at scale
• —your snake, which will worry people
• —your tortoise, which will worry nobody
• —a cat that is not yours, with permission from someone who owns it
• —a drawing of an animal that does not exist
• —your dog wearing a hat, which is the entire advert

The best use of a billboard. Everyone else sees a mystery; twelve people see a message.

• —an inside joke from 2011
• —a group chat name
• —your fantasy league trophy
• —the score of one specific match
• —a quote from your friend who says it constantly
• —a nickname earned on one specific night
• —the name of a WhatsApp group with four members
• —a reference to an incident involving a car park
• —your university corridor's collective in-joke
• —the punchline with the setup deliberately omitted
• —a private countdown
• —a running joke, printed, to formally end it
• —an office bet, settled in public
• —the seven-word summary of a friendship
• —a birthday message that is legally not embarrassing but morally is

People keep finding uses we did not design for. These are the good ones.

• —a recruitment ad aimed at one office window
• —your conference talk and its date
• —a product launch countdown
• —a change of address
• —a shop's new opening hours
• —'we have moved, we are now next door'
• —a rebrand announcement
• —a genuine public thank-you to a team
• —an obituary notice, dignified
• —a lost cat notice, at enormous scale
• —a found cat notice, more triumphant
• —an announcement that a long project is finally finished
• —a retirement
• —a graduation
• —a milestone number: 10 years, 1000 customers, 1 customer
• —an invitation to an event that anyone may attend

Aim it at yourself, an idea, or nobody in particular. Aim it at a named person and it will not pass review.

• —'I told you it would work'
• —'still not finished'
• —your own new year's resolution, so you cannot escape it
• —a public bet with yourself
• —'this cost more than the thing it is about'
• —a complaint about an inanimate object
• —a complaint about a month
• —a complaint about the weather in a specific city
• —your least popular opinion, expressed politely
• —a hill you are willing to die on, clearly signposted
• —'it was never about the money'
• —the thing you should have said at the time

There is no rule that says a billboard must mean anything. There is only a rule that says it must be legal.

• —a very large egg
• —the word 'SOUP'
• —a gradient
• —a photograph of a door
• —a maze that cannot be solved
• —a fake barcode
• —a fake QR code that is just a pattern
• —the number 4, alone
• —an arrow pointing at your neighbour's rectangle
• —an arrow pointing at nothing
• —a horizon line
• —a single continuous line drawing
• —a chessboard mid-game
• —the word 'CONTINUED' with nothing before it
• —a fake advert for a product that does not exist
• —a fake advert for a product that should exist
• —an extremely detailed diagram of nothing in particular
• —the same word, sixty times
• —your rectangle, left entirely blank, in a colour of your choosing