Canva Breaks the Billboard—Literally and Figuratively

Billboards: the original scroll-stoppers. Except now they’re more like scroll-past-ers. With every highway and high-rise jammed full of logos screaming for attention, even the biggest boards can go completely unnoticed. So, how do you make a billboard actually stand out in 2025?

Canva’s answer: smash the fourth wall. Or in this case, the billboard frame.

The design platform known for empowering creatives decided to market to creatives by playing with a painfully familiar concept—client feedback. Their new campaign features phrases like “make the logo bigger” and “turns out the 16×9 was actually supposed to be 9×16” bursting out of the billboard itself. Literally. As in, the visuals extend beyond the edges.

It’s a clever case of form meets function: the chaotic energy of design-by-committee brought to life in 3D. By embracing every designer’s recurring nightmare, Canva positions itself as both in on the joke and the solution to it. The message is crystal clear: Canva understands the struggle, and it’s here to help you design your way through it.

Marketing Takeaway:
When your audience is tired of the box, don’t just think outside of it—build outside of it. Canva doesn’t just advertise to designers—it empathizes with them. And empathy makes for billboard gold.