Perplexity & F1's Lewis Hamilton Use High-Impact DOOH in São Paulo’s Restricted Ad Market
- adiller2
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Perplexity, a search engine powered by artificial intelligence (AI), reasserted their brand partnership with seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton leading up to the 2025 F1 Brazilian Grand Prix in Brazil with an immersive DOOH campaign spanning São Paulo’s airports, metro stations, and the primary transit routes to the race. The goal was to drive visibility of their brand partnership and align with a major global cultural event.
The biggest challenge was navigating São Paulo’s 2007 Clean City Act, which banned almost all Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising formats to reduce visual pollution, leaving advertisers with just two outdoor formats to work with: bus shelters and the city’s distinctive digital street clocks.
Because of this, advertisers looking for large formats or broader OOH inventory have to pivot to indoor environments like shopping malls, airports, metro systems, and major transit hubs.
With that in mind, PJX Media designed a program that would capture Formula One fans from the moment they arrived in São Paulo all the way to the Autódromo José Carlos Pace (Interlagos). Our approach focused entirely on digital formats due to the extremely quick turnaround and the need to meet artwork deadlines.
We turn challenging market constraints into unmissable, high-impact opportunities.
Here’s how PJX Media structured the campaign:
Airports (GRU & CGH): We anchored the out-of-home campaign at both the international and domestic airports, ensuring immediate visibility for incoming event attendees.
Subway System: We layered digital OOH inventory throughout the metro network, including their largest and highest-traffic digital spectaculars.
Street-Level Digital Clocks: We secured premium placements in the neighborhoods where visitors were most likely to stay, dine, or go out at night — ensuring constant presence throughout the city.
CPTM Line 09 (to Interlagos): We maximized digital formats on this train line, which is the primary route to the race track, including the long-format Skybridge LEDs.
The aim was to reach event-goers in a high-impact, unmissable way, capturing them from arrival to commute to the actual race, and everywhere in between.
This Perplexity out-of-home campaign launched in São Paulo, Brazil in early November and ran for two weeks. Learn more about international out-of-home advertising in our other article.
Check out more images below! How cool is the skybridge DOOH?
Digital out-of-home airport advertising and transit OOH is perfect for contextual marketing campaigns like how Perplexity advertised at the same time as the Formula 1 race where Lewis Hamilton was competing.
Even with the market constraints and the tight timeline, this OOH campaign is a great example of our international market intelligence, our ability to execute quickly, and our ability to build meaningful OOH strategies that deliver on a client’s objectives. Contact one of our PJX Media OOH experts about your next campaign.