Key Takeaways:
- SMUG Dairy used hyper-local ad copy across London and Brighton to embed its brand directly into neighborhood culture, turning public spaces into targeted brand moments.
- OOH spend is rising ($9.13B by 2025) while time spent with digital media is declining, making location-specific campaigns a smarter investment.
- Similar to Spotify Wrapped and Heinz’s Ketchup Fraud, SMUG Dairy proves that contextual, culturally relevant creative can drive real engagement and recall.
Billboards aren’t dead. They’re just being used with sharper intent.
SMUG Dairy, a hybrid dairy brand from Kerry Consumer Foods, has launched a bold out-of-home (OOH) campaign that proves localized messaging still cuts through.
The campaign features 45 site-specific ads, developed in partnership with creative agency BMB, featured across London and Brighton, turning street-level spaces into cultural callouts.
Each line delivers a dose of smug wit tailored to its setting, a confident reminder that in modern marketing, relevance beats volume.
SMUG Dairy didn’t just fill billboard slots. It turned them into cultural commentary.
"This campaign takes the core TV idea, the smugness of choosing better dairy, and brings it to life across the city. Same attitude, now in headlines.
Each execution is rooted in London-specific insight, with lines designed to feel extra smug for those in the know.Digivans made that context even sharper by turning up in the right place, with the right flex.
And the mural? That’s pure physical smugness. Big, bold, impossible to ignore. An embodiment of the SMUG Dairy attitude," BMB Creative Director Pim Lai told DesignRush.
On King’s Road, the copy reads: “Feel as SMUG as a parent whose child is ‘very advanced for their age.’”
At Brighton Pier: “Feel as SMUG as someone who left London for ‘space and vibes.’”
Each line taps into neighborhood-specific nuances to spark recognition, relevance, and word-of-mouth.
This isn’t generic brand awareness. It’s personal.
OOH Rebounds as Digital Fatigue Rises
The OOH work builds on SMUG Dairy’s April TV spots, “Jane” and “Larry,” which introduced the brand’s confident and uncompromising tone.
Also created by BMB, the campaign features two people who have embraced a dairy alternative without sacrificing their favorite foods.
Jane enjoys her cheese toastie with the same satisfying melt, while Larry continues to savor his flat white.
Both have left behind the concerns that often come with traditional dairy, feeling confident in their choice.
The campaign highlights how SMUG Dairy offers a satisfying option for those seeking to reduce saturated fat intake without compromising on taste.
It’s also the smarter and more sustainable choice, offering a lower carbon footprint.
Now, this same brand voice carries through murals, vans, and high-footfall sites.
The campaign doesn’t repeat the message. It amplifies it where it matters, using a format that still works.
In fact, the United States OOH and DOOH market size is expected to reach $9.13 billion in 2025, according to Mordor Intelligence.
SMUG Dairy ad in an office elevator corridor | Source: SMUG x BMB
At the same time, digital ad fatigue is climbing.
Overall time spent with media will decline for the first time since the Great Recession, according to Emarketer.
This shift makes campaigns like SMUG Dairy’s not just timely, but strategically smart. They don’t fight for digital attention.
They own physical presence with relevance, while making smart moves in the digital space to target users on all fronts.
-content.jpg "Graphic showing OOH Market Growth Overview for 2025")
SMUG Dairy’s campaign reflects other brands taking a creative location-aware approach to marketing.
In recent years, high-performing OOH campaigns have leaned heavily into local relevance and cultural context. Here are some examples:
- The 2024 Spotify year-end “Wrapped” activation used regional insights and humor to dominate share-of-voice in cities like London and New York.
- Heinz’s “Ketchup Fraud” campaign called out restaurants refilling branded bottles with generic ketchup, contributing to an 8% sales uplift.
- Netflix’s “Stranger Things” murals turned city walls into fan engagement hotspots, leading to viral social media interactions and heightened brand loyalty.
What all these campaigns share with SMUG Dairy’s effort is a belief that physical media works best when it mirrors the mindset of its surroundings.
Rather than being about scale, it’s about specificity. And in today’s attention economy, that shift is proving more effective than ever.
What Agencies and Brands Should Learn from SMUG Dairy
This isn’t just a clever campaign. It’s a reminder of what good media looks like when it’s done with intent.
SMUG Dairy didn’t flood cities with ads.
It picked its moments, understood its audience, and delivered copy that felt right for the street and the setting. That’s what made it land.
The lesson isn’t about out-of-home versus digital. It’s about message versus noise.
Right now, the campaigns built with cultural awareness and geographic precision are the ones breaking through because they respect the context they appear in.
If you’re buying space without thinking about the story it tells at street level, you’re not just wasting budget. You’re missing the point.
Looking to partner with creative agencies that know how to make context count? Explore top-rated teams behind standout campaigns by browsing our list of the Best Creative Marketing Agencies.
