The Campaign Jonny Didn't Know About: How Firstboard Turned Ho Chi Minh City into a Surprise

Imagine landing in a city for a holiday, only to discover later that your face has been appearing all over it — on billboards, LED screens, airport jumbo bags, pamphlets, hotel pillows, and even a moving LED bike.

The strange part?

You knew absolutely nothing about it.

That was the idea behind a recent project Firstboard worked on with the team behind Max Fosh in Ho Chi Minh City. What started as a simple request to pull a surprise stunt for their friend Jonny quickly turned into something much bigger: an OOH campaign built quietly around one person, while that person had no idea it was happening.

The brief itself was simple. Jonny was visiting Ho Chi Minh City, and the team wanted to surprise him.

So we started with a billboard.

But one billboard didn't feel quite enough.

If the objective was to surprise Jonny, why stop at one moment?

That question changed the entire campaign.

While Jonny was making his way around Ho Chi Minh City, Firstboard was working behind the scenes to make sure the city had a few surprises waiting for him. A static billboard appeared with his face. Then came LED screens around the city, putting Jonny's face into places he would never expect to see it.

And then things became a little more ridiculous.

Imagine walking through the streets and suddenly seeing an LED bike travelling directly in front of you — displaying something connected to you, without any warning. That was exactly the kind of unexpected moment the campaign was designed to create.

But the surprises weren't limited to the streets.

At the airport, jumbo bags featuring Jonny were prepared as part of his arrival experience. 

Then came the hotel.

Instead of simply checking into a room, Jonny had another surprise waiting for him: a pillow featuring his own image.

By this point, the campaign had moved far beyond the original idea of “put Jonny on a billboard.”

We were essentially turning Ho Chi Minh City into one giant inside joke — one that everyone behind the campaign knew about except Jonny.

And that was what made the project so interesting from an OOH perspective.

The campaign wasn't built around one big media placement. It was built around a sequence of moments.

A billboard could introduce Jonny.

An LED screen could make him appear again somewhere completely unexpected.
An LED bike could bring the campaign into his path.

A jumbo bag at the airport could turn an ordinary arrival into part of the story.

And a pillow at the hotel could make the joke personal.

Each individual execution was relatively simple. But when they were connected together, they created something much bigger.

They created a story that followed Jonny around the city — without Jonny knowing that he was the main character.

Behind the scenes, of course, making something like this happen was far from simple.

There was no ready-made media package for “surprise Jonny.”

We had to work across different media owners, production teams, suppliers and locations, each with their own requirements and timelines. Some elements needed production. Some needed installation. Some had to happen at very specific moments. Others had to be coordinated carefully so that the surprise wouldn't be revealed too early.

That is where Firstboard's role went beyond simply finding media inventory.

We weren't just asked, “Where can we put an advertisement?”

We were asked, in effect:

“Here's the idea. How can we make this happen in Ho Chi Minh City?”

And that is a very different kind of OOH brief.

It requires knowing the local media landscape, understanding what can realistically be executed, and being able to connect all those moving pieces into one campaign.

Because creative ideas can be wild.

The execution still has to work.

What made this campaign especially fun was that there was no need for CGI or a huge artificial production set. The city itself became the stage.

The billboards were real.

The LED screens were real.

The LED bike was real.

The airport jumbo bags were real.

The pamphlets were real.

The pillow was real.

And Jonny was really walking around the city, completely unaware that all of this was happening around him.

That is the kind of thing OOH can do when it is treated as more than simply advertising space.

A billboard doesn't always have to be a billboard.

A screen can become part of a stunt.

A moving media format can become a surprise.

An airport touchpoint can become part of a story.

Even a hotel room can become another chapter of the campaign.

The media becomes the experience.

And the experience becomes something people can actually see, encounter and talk about.

For Firstboard, this project was a great example of why we don't believe OOH should always be approached from a fixed menu of formats.

Sometimes, a client comes to us with a very clear media requirement.

And sometimes, they come with an idea that sounds a little crazy.

Those are often the briefs we enjoy the most.

Because our job isn't simply to tell a client what inventory is available.

It is to understand what they are trying to achieve, explore what is possible, connect the right people and suppliers, and find a practical way to bring the idea to life.

The Max Fosh project started with one simple thought: surprise Jonny.

It ended with an entire city quietly participating in the surprise.

And somewhere between the billboard, the LED screens, the LED bike, the airport jumbo bags, the pamphlets and that very memorable pillow, a normal OOH campaign became something else entirely.

It became a mystery.

A joke.

An experience.

And, most importantly, a story.

Jonny may not have known what was happening behind the scenes.

But that was exactly the point.

One crazy idea. One trusted partner. A whole city involved.

If you have an unconventional OOH idea for Vietnam or anywhere across Southeast Asia, bring it to Firstboard.

We'll work out the “how.”