Billboards double as roadside beds for Pakistan’s homeless laborers

MoltyFoam has created the Billbed — a billboard made of foam, which advertises the company during the day and transforms into a roadside bed at night.

In every major city of Pakistan, there are an estimated 500,000 homeless individuals. Most of them are out of town laborers who have no choice but to sleep on the street at night, which then affects their work the next day. Hoping to provide a better alternative to the hard rock beds they currently make do with, MoltyFoam has created the Billbed — a billboard constituting a foam body, which advertises the company during the day and flips horizontally to transform into a temporary bed at night.

MoltyFoam — who have been producing consumer mattresses for over 50 years — have already installed 150 Billbeds throughout Pakistan, and the advertising firm behind the initiative, BBDO, recently won a Bronze Lion at Cannes. We have previously seen billboards double as water filters in Peru, and makeshift walls in Thailand. How else could outdoor advertising have the added use of benefiting communities?