Wagging, whiskers and winning big: Battersea Dogs & Cats Home wins Global’s Look Ahead 2025 /

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home has taken top honours in Global’s Look Ahead 2025 competition, turning the rush-hour trek into a touching narrative with a creative out-of-home (OOH) campaign.

The winning entry, created in collaboration with New Commercial Arts, beat a shortlist of eight ideas selected by a panel of 15 leading figures in creativity, media, and marketing.

‘We’re looking for a little more use of the space… just an illustration won’t do,’ said Dan Cole, executive creative director at Havas and co-founder of 2022 Look Ahead winner The Wayback. A comment that set the tone for the judging day.

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home’s simple yet profound idea resonated deeply with judges, shifting the energy in the room from analytical to ‘awww’. As one judge commented, ‘If you walked into the station and saw it, you would feel the impact,’ noting its potential to ‘tell multiple chapters of a story rather than just one short message’. The campaign aims to share rescue animals’ journeys to their forever homes with millions of commuters as they make their own way home. 

Key to its success was the idea's emotional impact and clever use of advertising space. Judges particularly praised ‘the journey home aspect’, which gave it ‘a one-up on the competitors’, and highlighted its strong integration with the media platform, calling it a ‘highly contextual idea’. The campaign also incorporates interactive elements, such as visuals of adopted pets whose fur appears to blow in sync with tube arrivals and departures, adding to its charm. Described as ‘simple, but clever’, the entry was felt to have ‘found a sweet spot that marries the Elizabeth line, the journey home, and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home’, with the potential to be ‘really powerful’ if the animals were captured correctly.

Scheduled to run for two weeks this summer, Battersea and New Commercial Arts’ winning concept will dominate iconic digital ad spaces including gateways, runways, and escalator ribbons at Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, and Farringdon Elizabeth line stations. The campaign is exclusively set for evening display, featuring the message ‘As you make your way home...’ to connect directly with commuters during peak hours. The creative team embraced the competition brief – which challenged entrants to push the limits of digital OOH media – transforming it into a ‘strategic bottom-to-top story’ for outdoor spaces.

Now in its third year, the Look Ahead competition, in partnership with Transport for London (TfL) and Global Media & Entertainment Group, seeks game-changing, future-facing OOH ideas that blend creativity and technology to capture commuters' attention. As Anto Chioccarelli, Global’s creative solutions partnerships director, announced the winner at the Global TfL Upfront event, the judges’ passion for outdoor advertising was evident. Laura Jordan Bambach, founder of Uncharted, noted the fun potential of outdoor spaces combined with fantastic technology and millions of daily users, while Jon Holden of Diageo emphasised the search for ideas that ‘can marry the creative with the media space and who can maximise the journey’.

Following the success of previous winners like The Wayback and Innocent Drinks, Battersea’s campaign was recognised for pushing creative boundaries and media integration to create a memorable experience.

As Ann Wixley of Wavemaker observed, underground formats offer a captive audience who are likely to engage deeply with content. With this campaign, New Commercial Arts and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home have cracked the brief, with a campaign designed to stop people in their tracks and open hearts to the idea of welcoming a rescue pet into their home.