Ramboll Engineering for Life Turns a Billboard Into a Bird Sanctuary
Ramboll's "Engineering for Life – Billboard for Birds" is an outdoor advertising installation created by Stockholm agency Garbergs in March 2018, in which a billboard covering Ramboll's headquarters in Sweden concealed an automatic bird-feeding machine that attracted real birds to interact with the image of two outstretched hands printed on its face.
The campaign operates as a physical demonstration of Ramboll's broader brand platform, "Engineering for Life," which the company launched in November 2017 in Sweden, according to Garbergs Se. That platform was built on the proposition that engineering should create tangible value for both people and nature — not merely for industrial or commercial ends. Rather than asserting this position through conventional corporate advertising, Garbergs and Ramboll chose to enact it literally. A hidden automatic bird-feeding device was installed on the reverse side of a large-format outdoor billboard placed across the facade of Ramboll's Swedish headquarters. The front of the billboard displayed an image of two cupped hands. Real birds, drawn by the concealed feeder, landed on and moved across those hands, animating the static image and completing the creative concept without any digital manipulation or post-production trickery.
In Sweden, where corporate environmental credibility carries significant weight among both engineering talent and institutional clients, the installation was designed to function as a genuine proof point rather than a symbolic gesture. The campaign contained a single media asset and was classified under professional services and outdoor advertising. It was submitted to international creative databases approximately seven years ago, and as reported by 100wattaren Se, the work was recognised among entries and winners at the 100-wattaren awards, Sweden's leading advertising industry prize, listed as "The Bird Banner – Engineering for Life" for Garbergs and IUM. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 74 out of 100, reflecting strong conceptual integrity and executional clarity within a single-asset format.
Ramboll faced a specific strategic challenge in Sweden. The company is a major engineering, design, and consultancy firm competing for both talent and institutional reputation in a market where professional services brands are largely invisible to the general public. According to garbergs.se, the "Engineering for Life" platform was designed in part to raise awareness of Ramboll in Sweden and to involve engineers themselves in the brand's storytelling — a dual objective that required proof of values, not proclamation of them.
The professional services sector in Sweden sits within a broader global consulting market that, according to adruby.com, reached substantial scale by 2018. Internationally, firms such as Deloitte and Accenture dominate consulting revenue rankings, creating a landscape in which mid-tier and specialist engineering consultancies must differentiate through positioning rather than scale. In Sweden specifically, where public discourse around sustainability and ecological responsibility has long shaped business expectations, a campaign that physically demonstrated care for nature carried credible strategic weight.
Garbergs identified that the most persuasive argument Ramboll could make was not a verbal one. The insight was that engineers, by professional disposition, trust systems that work over claims that sound good. A billboard that functioned as a bird sanctuary was, in effect, a small piece of engineering deployed in service of life — which is precisely what the platform promised. As noted by Resume Se in its "Månadens Utomhus" coverage for March through May 2018, Kajsa Öijerholm of RBK described the installation as a "real visualization" of the brand's commitment, a formulation that captures exactly how the campaign resolved the tension between corporate messaging and authentic demonstration in the Swedish market.
The creative execution of "Engineering for Life – Billboard for Birds" rests on a single mechanical insight: nature, given the right conditions, will animate an image better than any digital technology. Art director Sebastian Smedberg and copywriter Sedir Ajeenah, both of Garbergs Stockholm, developed the concept of attaching an automatic bird-feeding machine to the reverse side of a large-format outdoor billboard, according to resume.se and garbergs.se. The front of the billboard displayed two cupped hands — an image that, without the birds, reads as an offer of care or support. With them, it becomes a living scene.
Designer Lowe Steiner contributed to the visual execution, while the production was directed by Sebastian Ringler with Daniel Griffel serving as director of photography, per resume.se. Account management was handled by Malin Boustedt and Joakim Landin as account director. The billboard was installed at Ramboll's headquarters in Sweden, meaning the brand's own physical premises became the medium. This locational decision was not incidental — it placed the demonstration directly in the context of Ramboll's daily operations, making the claim geographically and institutionally specific rather than abstract.
The production approach belongs to a tradition of what might be called analogue augmented reality: using physical, mechanical means to add a dynamic layer to a static surface. No screens, no sensors, and no live feeds were required. The automatic feeder ran continuously behind the billboard face, and birds arrived and departed on their own schedule, ensuring that the image was never quite the same twice. This variability was a feature rather than a limitation — it meant the installation behaved more like a habitat than an advertisement, which was precisely the point Ramboll and Garbergs were making about the nature of good engineering in Sweden and beyond.
No verified performance data for the "Engineering for Life – Billboard for Birds" campaign is publicly available in terms of reach figures, brand lift measurements, or recruitment outcomes. The campaign contained a single media asset and ran as an outdoor installation in Sweden during March 2018, limiting the conventional metrics typically associated with multi-channel campaigns.
What the public record does confirm is industry recognition. As reported by 100wattaren.se, the campaign was listed among entries and winners at the 100-wattaren awards under the title "The Bird Banner – Engineering for Life," representing Garbergs and IUM. The 100-wattaren is Sweden's principal advertising industry award, and recognition there carries specific credibility within the Swedish professional services and creative communities. Coverage by resume.se, Sweden's leading advertising trade publication, described the installation positively, with Kajsa Öijerholm of RBK characterising it as a genuine visualisation of Ramboll's brand position — a qualitative indicator of how the Swedish advertising industry received the work.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several properties associated with durable brand-building effectiveness. It connects a corporate promise directly to a physical proof point, it generates inherent shareability through the spectacle of real birds interacting with a billboard face, and it does so without relying on paid media amplification to create meaning. For a professional services brand in Sweden seeking to differentiate through values rather than scale, the installation format offers a high signal-to-noise ratio: one asset, one location, one idea executed with complete fidelity. The Clapboard Score of 74 out of 100 reflects this conceptual strength while acknowledging the inherent limitations of a single-execution outdoor campaign in terms of measurable reach and documented business outcomes.
"Engineering for Life – Billboard for Birds" is an outdoor installation created by Garbergs for Ramboll in Sweden in March 2018. A billboard covering Ramboll's headquarters displayed two cupped hands while a concealed automatic bird-feeding machine on its reverse side attracted real birds, physically demonstrating Ramboll's brand promise that engineering creates value for people and nature.
Garbergs, based in Stockholm, Sweden, created the campaign. The core creative team included art director Sebastian Smedberg and copywriter Sedir Ajeenah, with designer Lowe Steiner, director Sebastian Ringler, and director of photography Daniel Griffel also credited, according to resume.se and garbergs.se.
The campaign received recognition at the 100-wattaren awards, Sweden's leading advertising industry prize, as reported by 100wattaren.se. It was entered and listed among winners as "The Bird Banner – Engineering for Life" for Garbergs and IUM. The work also received positive editorial coverage in resume.se, Sweden's principal advertising trade publication.
An automatic bird-feeding machine was concealed on the reverse side of the billboard, which displayed an image of two cupped hands on its face. The feeder attracted real birds that landed on and moved across the printed hands, animating the static image without digital technology. The billboard was installed at Ramboll's headquarters in Sweden.
Ramboll launched "Engineering for Life" in November 2017 in Sweden to raise brand awareness and involve engineers in its storytelling, according to garbergs.se. The platform positioned Ramboll around the idea that engineering should create value for both people and nature, addressing a need to differentiate the brand within Sweden's professional services landscape.
The Ramboll "Engineering for Life – Billboard for Birds" campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 74 out of 100. The score reflects strong conceptual integrity and precise executional craft within a single-asset outdoor format, balanced against the inherent limitations of one installation in terms of documented reach and measurable business outcomes.
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