Digital out-of-home (DOOH) has entered a new creative era. Across the industry, brands are finding new ways to make every format count. Whether tapping into cultural conversations, adapting to live data or using motion to transform familiar assets into something unexpected, today’s most effective DOOH campaigns prove the medium is no longer just a canvas for advertising, but a platform for storytelling.
Some of the world’s most recognizable brands are leading that evolution. Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Starbucks, The Home Depot, Choice Hotels and Underdog each found distinct ways to capture attention in DOOH, from craveable animation to messaging that moved with March Madness. Brought to life by Vistar’s Creative Studio, these campaigns demonstrate how technology and creativity can work together to produce more relevant, engaging experiences.
Here’s a closer look at the creative strategy behind these standout campaigns.
Coca-Cola: From static to can't-miss
Coca-Cola had a simple but effective retail promotion: buy one, get one for $1 across a portfolio of brands including Fanta, Powerade, Smartwater and vitaminwater. At a gas station or convenience store, a deal like that had to compete for attention in just a few seconds, while shoppers were already on their way to the register.
The studio leaned into that, giving the “Mix & Match” creative some personality, with the bottles sliding in fast before the deal landed on screen. The result was a straightforward promotion with eye-catching creative, turning a quick stop into a two-drink purchase.
McDonald's: Hot honey that drips
McDonald’s Hot Honey menu was made to be drool-worthy, and the creative needed to make people feel that before they even took a bite. The honey drip on the Hot Honey Snack Wrap and Sausage Egg Biscuit took center stage with animation from the studio, making a limited-time offer hard to look past.
Running exclusively in bars via TouchTunes, it reached people the middle of a night out, when McDonald’s sounded like the best idea anyone has ever had.
Starbucks: Frappuccino meets the Winter Olympics
PepsiCo promotes the Starbucks bottled Frappuccino every year, but using the same creative season after season can start to blend into the background. When the Winter Olympics came around, there was an opportunity to make it feel like something entirely new.
With the studio’s collaboration, a suite of static and video assets specifically tied to the games launched in sync with the start of the Winter Olympics. The video ad featured a figure skater stepping off the ice, grabbing a Frappuccino and heading right back out, making the drink feel like a natural part of the Olympic experience.
The Home Depot: Spring has sprung
The Home Depot’s Spring Black Friday “12 Days of Deals” event ran for nearly two weeks, making it easy for shoppers to lose track of how much time was left. Working with the studio, the campaign rolled out a multi-format suite of static and motion assets, alongside a dynamic creative execution that built a live day-countdown directly into each ad. As the days ticked down, the countdown kept the urgency real, giving shoppers a concrete reason to act before the deals disappeared.
Choice Hotels: Emotion to action
Choice Hotels and Choice Privileges wanted people to go from seeing an ad to booking a room, fast. The challenge was making that ad feel less like a logo and more like a reason to get away.
The creative leaned into that feeling with warm, vacation-ready imagery and a new loyalty program promising more of what travelers actually value. Developed alongside the studio, the campaign closed the gap between that feeling and action with a QR code and the nearest hotel location. Within the first month, it had already generated over 200 QR code scans.
Underdog: Bet the bracket
March Madness moves fast, with upsets and odds shifting by the minute, and Underdog wanted creative that could keep pace. The studio helped build a campaign using dynamic creative that pulled in live predictive analytics and current team matchups, so the numbers on screen updated as the tournament progressed.
The result was bold, high-energy creative running in bars that showed real-time win probabilities, so viewers could see exactly how Underdog had the bracket called at any given moment.
Creative that connects
These campaigns show the range of what DOOH creative can do. It can make a retail offer more noticeable, turn a product shot into a craveable moment, tie a brand to a major cultural moment or react in real time as a game unfolds.
Across these six campaigns, the common thread isn’t just strong creative, it’s creative built for the context people experience it in. With support from Vistar’s Creative Studio, brands brought motion, dynamic data, location relevance and timely storytelling into their DOOH campaigns, making each message feel more immediate and more effective.
Want to see what Vistar’s Creative Studio can do for your next campaign? Let’s connect.
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