10 Controversial Outdoor Advertising Billboards

We’re all used to unusual ads these days, no matter what the medium. But once in a while, something is so bizarre, so hilarious or just plain insulting, we can’t help but do a double take. Whether it’s PETA making obesity jokes or a mistress exposing her affair with a married man, check out the 10 most outrageous billboards we could find. [via]

Mistress Exposes Affair

Love hath no fury like a woman scorned, and YaVaughnie Wilkins proved it when she paid approximately $250,000 for billboards in New York, Atlanta and San Francisco revealing her eight-and-a-half-year affair with married Oracle CEO and Obama advisor Charles Phillips. Apparently the billboards were her revenge after he reconciled with his wife. She even created a website—which was allegedly full of photos, love notes and other evidence of the affair—that has since been taken down. Photo by Jen Gallardo.


PETA’s Diet Plan

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals attracted a lot of attention with this billboard, though most of it was negative. So much so that soon after it went up, it came down and was replaced with “GONE: Just like all the pounds lost by people who go vegetarian.” Photo courtesy of PETA.

Have an Affair

Ashley Madison, a dating site for married people who are looking to have an affair, is controversial enough. So it’s no surprise that an advertisement for the website would stir the pot even more. Photo courtesy of @topgold via Flickr.

Prepare to Die

The message is loud and clear here—it’s just totally tactless. While we all can agree that everyone is going to die and it’s best to be prepared, this was a little over the top. We hope this funeral home will go the slightly-more-subtle route for its next campaign. Photo courtesy of Terry Foote via Flickr.

Barack Obama, Jacket Salesman

The Weatherproof Garment Company attracted the attention of the White House when it created an ad that used an Associated Press photo of the President wearing a Weatherproof jacket. Though it wasn’t exactly illegal for the company to install the billboard in Times Square, they never asked the President for permission to use his likeness, and the White House generally doesn’t utilize the leader of the free world to sell products. Photo courtesy of Brechtbug via Flickr.

Heavenly Endorsement

The marketing whizzes at a local Moe’s Southwest Grill probably thought they were geniuses when they came up with the idea to use God to sell burritos. Of course, pastors living in nearby Orlando, Florida, knew better—as did Moe’s corporate headquarters, who ordered the franchise to take it down since it violated company policy. Photo courtesy of Local6.

Freedom of Speech

Ellis Miller of Gilmer, Texas, doesn’t like how things are being done in the White House, and he’s letting everyone know it. “I was frustrated by how things were going with the health care bill and other aspects of the administration,” Miller explained. So he decided to put his freedom of speech to use with billboards like this one. Photo courtesy of James Gagliardi.

Too Much Sex…

Tiger Woods’s sex scandal did his own endorsements no good, but leave it to PETA to make lemonade out of lemons. Using his, ahem, multiple indiscretions as inspiration, they urged pet owners to spay or neuter their pets with this advertisement. Photo courtesy of PETA.

Funeral Home’s Heavy-Handed Hint

Bergemann & Son Funeral Services seems to have no shame when it comes to finding new customers, as can be seen from this billboard in the Berlin subway. It’s one thing for a funeral home to help you after death, but it’s a whole different story for them to help you get there. Photo courtesy of Reza Amanatch via Flickr.

Ring Finger

At first glance this billboard was pretty shocking to drivers on Signal Mountain Boulevard in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But upon closer inspection they got the joke. While the lady in this local jeweler’s ad is indeed giving the finger, it’s the ring finger, accompanied by the tagline “She’s tired of waiting.” Photo courtesy of cwalker71 via Flickr.

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