MARKETINGStartups Still Vie to Be
King of the Billboard
A low-tech ad strategy is still luring even the
most technologically advanced companies.
BY LUCINDA SHEN
sales and marketing.”
A prime piece of bill-
board real estate along the
101 currently runs about
$100,000 for a four-week
stint, per data at AdQuick.
That’s not nothing, but
insiders say that in the
go-go-go 1990s, it could
have cost many multiples
of that.
For most startups,
these ads are aimed at key
decision-makers travel-
ing to Silicon Valley or
the airport. Teampay and
ClickUp, for example,
have prominent billboard
ads between San Jose and
San Francisco.
Shilling has another
theory: The position-
ing is used strategically
to bolster dealmaking.
There have been several
instances, he says, when
startups bought ad space
just months before being
acquired by another com-
pany, or just before they
announced an IPO.
As companies face
hiring shortages, some
startups have also turned
to billboards as outright
recruiting tools, notes
AdQuick CEO Matthew
O’Conner. Vending ma-
chine car startup Carvana,
for instance, has used its
billboards to call for new
blood, noting “consistent
work, steady pay.”
Speaking of recruiting,
in February, early Uber
investor and evangelist for
Miami, Shervin Pishevar,
bought a pair of billboards
in San Francisco that
displayed a mock tweet
attributed to Miami Mayor
Francis Suarez. It read,
“Thinking about moving
to Miami? DM me.”proved surprisingly du-
rable. “For a lot of the tech
firms, they have made it
when they have a billboard
on the 101,” says Rob Shil-
ling, San Francisco general
manager for Outfront Me-
dia, referring to the iconic
artery that links that city
to Silicon Valley. Soaring
costs for digital advertising
plus a diminished ability
to track performance of
Facebook ads also seem to
be bolstering the so-called
out-of-home market.
After raising $115 mil-
lion in January, for
instance, news-app maker
News Break could be found
overhead by drivers zoom-
ing down the freeway. And
high above the streets of
downtown San Francisco,
Hive’s brand was visible
throughout the spring. In
April the cloud-based A.I.
startup secured an $85 mil-
lion funding round, a good
chunk of which went to
“increased investment inBACK IN 2019, a little-known
startup called Brex descended
on San Francisco. The fintech slath-
ered the city’s billboards and bus
stops with the message “This will
catch your interest” as it declared
itself the “first corporate card for
startups.” It spent about $300,000 to
snap up over 50% of the ad inventory
for three months in the area around
the city’s historic business district.
“It supercharged our growth,” CEO
Henrique Dubugras said of the cam-
paign, noting customers responded
more to the company’s sales pitches
after billboards went live. “Brands
that are real world have more trust
than those that are purely online.”
And though California is filled
with tech startups that are furiously
searching for the next big thing, old-
fashioned outdoor advertising hasTHE BRIEFILLUSTRATION BY
CHRIS GASH