A dashing collection of holiday billboards.

As a freelance interactive copywriter, I still always welcome the challenge of a billboard. You have only seven words and half a second to get your message across. (How many times have I slowed down just to read a too long message.) The holidays are an especially fun time with plenty of holiday carols, motifs and traditions to play off of.

This billboard by the San Diego Zoo is a visual pun on the sleigh pulled by Santa’s reindeer. This billboard ran last year as well, proving that some holiday traditions are worth repeating.

One of my favorite holiday billboards is this one by Wells Fargo which first ran I believe in 2007. It plays off the iconic stagecoach, with the nose of the lead lighting up red at night. Simple, clean and clever without being cutesy. It ran for numerous years and then last year was replaced by the billboard below which runs more on the cutesy side.