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Let’s Be Frank: This Nathan’s Famous OOH Campaign Cuts the Mustard

July 22, 2025

This is a story about how Nathan’s Famous put hot dogs on the map.

But it’s not about how immigrants Nathan and Ida Handwerker came to the United States from Poland in 1912 and just four years later began selling five-cent frankfurters from a little cart on Coney Island.

Nor is it about the hot dog eating contest that’s been happening at that original Nathan’s Famous location every Fourth of July since 1972. And it’s definitely not about how Joey Chestnut just won the “Mustard Belt” for the 17th time by eating 70.5 hot dogs in ten minutes after being banned from the competition last year for taking a sponsorship with a plant-based hot dog brand. Drama! But we digress.

This is a story about a literal map.

The New York City subway map, specifically.

Even if you’ve never set foot in NYC, you may have seen it before. It might be the most famous subway map in the world, emblazoned across every imaginable souvenir in any gift shop in the city. But did you know the MTA just changed it?

This April, that iconic map got its first full redesign since 1979. In addition to highlighting ADA stations and making the colorful layout easier to read, the new NYC Subway map brought with it one unintended consequence.

But let’s pause for a second – do you know why the subway map is so colorful in the first place? Each color represents a different trunk line – the primary line on which each train runs in Manhattan. The F, for example, is orange, because it runs along the IND Sixth Avenue Line, while the N and the Q trains share a yellow hue because they both run on the BMT Broadway Line.

Okay, unpause. That unintended consequence?

Nathan’s Famous ad that says “Once you see the hot dog, you can’t unsee it”. The hot dog is made by the N, F, and Q subway lines converging on the map right in front of the original Nathan’s Famous location on Coney Island. 
You can’t unsee the hot dog. And the fact that it’s literally right next to the original Nathan’s Famous location on Coney Island… what else even can you say but “pass the mustard?”

The MTA’s cartographer may not have picked up on the hidden hot dog – but the creatives at adam&eveDDB, agency of record for Nathan’s Famous, certainly did. And now, thanks to a clever, contextually relevant campaign, the MTA Subway map is never beating the “you’re a hot dog” allegations.

Nathan’s Famous Livecard MAX digital out of home advertisement on NYC Subway 
The campaign ran on classic two-sheet posters and Digital Liveboards on station platforms and mezzanines serving the lines leading into Coney Island, as well as inside subway cars on the 7 train and other lines via our exclusive, immersive, multi-screen Livecard MAX format.

But the trains on the N and Q lines that have been in service since 1988 don’t offer digital out-of-home capabilities. And that’s where this campaign really got creative.

Because on these trains, there are blocks of three adjacent seats that echo the yellow-orange-yellow colorway on the hot dog map. Can you guess what Nathan’s did with those?

Nathan’s Famous NYC subway ad with a mustard decal on an orange seat in between two yellow seats on the N train, representing a hot dog in a bun   
Just incredible – a perfect example of a creative execution that couldn’t be done online, can’t be done on television, can only come to life with out of home. Whatever coffee they’re drinking in the adam&eveDDB breakroom, we’ll take a very large bag.

Because that’s not even as far as they went. Indeed, the campaign cranked up the contextual relevance on two additional creatives with messaging centered on the F and N lines.

Nathan’s Famous NYC subway Digital Liveboard and Livecard MAX DOOH ads with contextually relevant messaging around the F and N line trains. 
This is the kind of ad campaign the Share button was made for. And since few things superpower a social out of home campaign like influencers do, Nathan’s enlisted Kareem Rahma of SubwayTakes to collaborate on a National Hot Dog Day edition of the popular series that’s accumulated 3 million subscribers or so across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.


After all, when an OOH campaign is this good, – the whole world needs to know about it. And because out of home drives digital actions like social sharing at the highest rates of any medium on a dollar-for-dollar basis, they will (SOURCE: Comscore). We can’t stop talking about this campaign at OUTFRONT HQ. Even Ad Age took note. So just imagine the buzz it’s getting in real life from the rest of New York.

We’re proud to have helped bring this brilliant campaign to life. If you’ve got some wild idea percolating in your head for one of your own, we’d love to do the same. Let’s connect and talk about it.

Author: Jay Fenster, Marketing Manager @ OUTFRONT

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