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Hi Marketing Bestie,

My wife and I are watching all the reality TV drama and TikTok drama happening and I need to hear your take:

- Team Alix or Alex?
- Team Kyle or Dorit?
- When did West and Amanda start?

Was this email forwarded to you?

SPARKNOTES FROM THE POD

Olivia Oshry took the LSAT twice. Got the same score both times. Decided law school wasn't for her.

So she interned at AOL instead. Stayed for 8 years. Worked on every type of marketing role you can imagine. B2B. Consumer. Brand. All of it.

Then she went to Flowcode (the QR code company that blew up during COVID). Helped DTC brands scale offline. Figured out how to get digital-like metrics in the real world.

Now she's CMO at OAAA (Out of Home Advertising Association of America). Running marketing for the entire billboard industry.

Here's what's wild: She came from DIGITAL. AOL. Tech startups. Digital ad tech stacks.

But she made a bet on BILLBOARDS. The oldest channel in marketing. Because she saw something happening.

"Ugly ads perform" became the mantra in digital. And it made her sick. She wanted big beautiful creative. She wanted brands to feel like BRANDS again. Not just conversion machines.

Also: She grew up in New York City. The epicenter of incredible out-of-home. She's been obsessed with billboards her whole life. Watched Super Bowl ads on repeat as a kid (that Britney Spears Pepsi 1).

So when the OAAA role came up, it was a no-brainer. Great people. A medium she loved. Real growth opportunity.

And here's her thesis: Out-of-home is having a RENAISSANCE. Over 30% of it is digital now. It's measurable. It amplifies every other channel. And people are craving it post-pandemic.

Listen to the full episode here where Olivia breaks down why brands fake billboards just for social clout, why OOH is the "O" in omni-channel, and why she thinks the human medium is the future of marketing.

Olivia's Take: "The Yahoo thing, that's a mock-up, right? And so if you're thinking about Yahoo as a brand, doing a mock-up of a billboard on social that's getting reshared by Hailey Bieber. That just goes to the essence of how powerful the medium is, that it's not even an actual billboard, it's just a mock-up of a billboard."

This is INSANE when you think about it.

Yahoo didn't buy a billboard at Coachella. They MOCKED UP a billboard.

Posted it on social. And Hailey Bieber reposted it.

That fake billboard got more reach than most actual billboards.

Why? Because billboards are a SYMBOL. A symbol of trust. A symbol of visibility. A symbol of "you made it."

When you see a brand on a billboard, you think: They're legit. They're real. They're investing.

Cracker Barrel did the same thing. When they reversed their rebrand (the internet HATED their new logo), they posted a mock-up of their old logo on a billboard with the caption "we've heard the feedback."

Not a real billboard. Just a mock-up. But it worked because the MEDIUM carries weight.

Compare that to Meta ads. When was the last time someone screenshot your Facebook ad and posted it on their story with excitement?

Never. Because Meta ads don't carry that cultural currency.

Billboards do. Even FAKE 1’s.

Takeaway: If you're launching something big (rebrand, product drop, major announcement), OOH should be part of the strategy BECAUSE of its social amplification potential. 

Pick high-traffic, photogenic locations (Sunset Boulevard, Times Square, Coachella route, downtown in your target city). Design creative that's share-worthy. Not just readable from a car. Something people want to PHOTOGRAPH. Add a hashtag or social handle so people can tag you. Track social mentions, screenshots, and earned media. The billboard is the seed. Social amplification is the multiplier. That's the power of real OOH.

Olivia's Take: "The whole goal of it is to really be this sort of connection piece in the middle of your media mix to sort of connect to social and to any of your other digital experiences potentially, of course, even TV or CTV."

OOH doesn't live in a silo.

It CONNECTS everything else.

Think about Coachella billboards. They're on the drive to the desert. But they show up EVERYWHERE else.

Instagram stories. TikTok. Twitter. Press articles. Influencer posts.

The billboard is the ANCHOR. But the distribution is omni-channel.

This works at ANY scale. Local billboard on your target customer's commute route. Bus shelter near your store. Transit ad in your city. Digital billboard in your downtown.

The physical placement gets you eyeballs. But the SOCIAL amplification gets you more.

But there's something bigger happening.

OOH makes your OTHER channels work better.

When someone sees your billboard on their commute, then sees your Meta ad later that day, the Meta ad performs better. Because you're top of mind.

When they see your billboard, then Google your brand, your SEO works harder. Because you've created demand.

OOH isn't competing with digital. It's ENHANCING digital.

That's why Olivia says "we put the O in omni-channel." It's literally the center of the hub.

The mistake is treating OOH like a 1-off media buy. "We bought a billboard. Cool. Done."

Wrong.

OOH should trigger a WHOLE ecosystem of activation.

Takeaway: When you run an OOH campaign, activate it across every channel simultaneously. Week 1 (before it goes live): Tease it on social. "Coming soon to a street near you." Email your list in that market. Build anticipation. Week 2-4 (live): Post the creative on social (photo + location tag). Run geofenced Meta/Google ads to people near your placements. Boost branded search spend in that geo. Send "Have you seen us around town?" email. Track and repost user-generated content of people photographing it. Pitch local press. Week 5+: Analyze lift in: Branded search volume (that geo vs control). Meta/Google performance (that geo vs control). Website traffic (that geo vs control). Social mentions/tags. OOH works when it's the centerpiece, not the afterthought.

Olivia's Take: "Over 30% of out of home right now is digital out of home, so there is a digital trajectory... how do we help DTC brands like scale offline by trying to think about how they could potentially get similar metrics to digital metrics in the offline world by leveraging things like QR on print, on out of home."

The #1 objection to OOH: "I can't measure it."

BS.

Over 30% of OOH is DIGITAL now. You can track impressions. You can track engagement. You can even track conversions.

How? A few ways:

QR codes. Put a QR on your billboard. Track scans. You know exactly how many people engaged.

Geofencing. Run mobile ads to people who saw your billboard. Track lift in brand searches.

Promo codes. Billboard-specific codes. "Use code HIGHWAY101" Track redemptions.

Branded search lift. Compare branded search volume before/after billboard campaign in that geo.

Attribution platforms. Companies like Billups, Geopath, and others track OOH attribution.

Olivia came from Flowcode. A QR code company. Their entire business was BUILT on making offline trackable.

And it works. DTC brands scaled with it. Because they could finally prove ROI.

The measurement problem is solved. The question is: Are you willing to test it?

Takeaway: Pick 1 OOH campaign to test with measurement built in. Start small (1 market, 1 month). Add a trackable element: QR code, unique promo code, or geofenced mobile ads. Track: QR scans/promo code usage. Branded search lift in that geo. Website traffic from that geo. Social mentions/tags. Calculate cost per impression. Compare to your digital channels. Most marketers are shocked when they actually measure it properly.

Olivia's Take: "I saw the way that digital advertising, especially like social ads, were really moving to like... you know, ugly ads perform and it just like wasn't for me. I was like, that's like, had a visceral reaction to that sometimes. And I was like, why not like think about how to do like big, beautiful creative, like in the real world."

Here's what happened to digital advertising: Performance marketing won. Ugly ads performed better than beautiful ads. So everyone made ugly ads.

White backgrounds. Benefit-driven copy. No brand. No beauty. Just CONVERSION.

And it worked. For a while.

But it killed something important: BRAND.

Olivia had a visceral reaction to it. She's a brand-centric person. She loves beautiful creative. She grew up watching Super Bowl ads on repeat.

And watching digital devolve into ugliness made her sick.

So she went to OOH. Because OOH is BEAUTIFUL by nature.

You can't make an ugly billboard. Well, you can. But you shouldn't. Because it's a 14-foot-tall canvas. It demands creativity.

And here's the thing: People are CRAVING beautiful brands again.

Post-pandemic, we want to experience things in the real world. We want brands that make us FEEL something. Not just click something.

OOH delivers that. Big. Beautiful. Creative. In the real world.

It's the antidote to "ugly ads perform."

Takeaway: If you've been stuck in performance marketing hell (white backgrounds, benefit-driven copy, no brand), OOH forces you to think differently. You can't A/B test a billboard to death. You have to make a STATEMENT. Start with: What's the 1 thing you want people to remember about your brand? Not a feature. Not a benefit. A FEELING. Design your OOH around that. Make it beautiful. Make it bold. Make it memorable. Then test it against your ugly Meta ads. You might be surprised what happens to brand recall.

Olivia's Take: "I'm not saying don't continue to do the other things that you're doing. I'm saying test it in conjunction with the things that you're already doing. And I guarantee you're going to see a lot of success."

The biggest mistake: Thinking OOH is either/or.

"Should I run Meta ads OR billboards?"

Wrong question.

The right question: "How does OOH amplify my existing channels?"

Olivia's not telling you to STOP running Meta ads. She's telling you to ADD OOH and watch what happens to your Meta ads.

Because OOH creates top-of-funnel awareness. Which makes your bottom-funnel channels work harder.

When someone sees your billboard, then sees your retargeting ad, they're more likely to convert. Because they've seen you twice. In 2 different places.

That's omni-channel.

So don't rip budget from Google to test OOH. Find NEW budget. Or reallocate from underperforming channels.

But don't treat it as a replacement. Treat it as an AMPLIFIER.

Test it in 1 market. For 1 month. With your full stack running underneath it.

Then measure lift across ALL channels. Not just OOH.

Takeaway: Pick 1 test market for OOH. Keep all your existing channels running (Meta, Google, email, etc.). Run OOH for 30 days in that market. Measure: Branded search lift (vs control market). Meta/Google performance lift (vs control market). Website traffic lift (vs control market). Social mentions/engagement. If you see lift across multiple channels, that's your signal. OOH isn't just driving OOH results. It's lifting your entire ecosystem.

EVENT ROUNDUP

Who’s coming?

IN A MEME

What other drama should I be paying attention to?

Your friend,

Daniel

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