By Managing Editor Anne Holland

I got stuck in traffic yesterday morning while driving over to sign the lease for our new offices. This is Rhode Island, so although I was on a main route, there was only one lane each way. Which meant I became darned familiar with the Muzak van directly in front of me.

The Muzak logo was painted on its rear along with some branding copy. I got a smile from thinking about this stressed-out van driver struggling to bring soothing music to the rest of us. Then I thought about how cool the logo was, compared to my mental image of the company... and so on. Muzak certainly got their money's worth from that out-of-home ad.

Here are three more fun out-of-home campaigns I've heard about recently -- along with creative samples (link below) that will make you smile too:

#1. Bobblehead billboard

Ignite Media, a Vancouver-area auto deadlership's ad agency, glued more than 700 different bobbleheads to a billboard, hoping for the "Holy cow" factor. They're measuring results by conducting phone surveys. And, they've already started a massive collection of dinky cars for the next rendition.

#2. StadiumTRAY

Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort is putting its message literally into the laps of sports enthusiasts. They've printed a 4-color ad onto the cardboard trays that concession stands hand out at Philadelphia's Wachovia Complex. The art is fairly cleverly designed to work with the shape of the tray.

#3. Bigger, better (measureable) truck-side ads

Bic pens as well as several TV and radio shows are running ads that completely take over the sides of large trucks. Unlike truckside promos that are painted -- which can limit your creativity -- these are printed on a giant sheet of plastic which is then affixed to the side of the truck for as long as you want your campaign to run.

It's got much more impact, plus you can run a campaign for a more limited time. And, we love this, the vendor offering the service uses GPS to track your trucks, and ultimately measure brand impact on the particular demographic you wanted to influence.

Here's a link to a Web page where we've posted creative samples of all three campaigns:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/coolads/ad.html