Interestingly, the corporate card startup launched in 2018 with a very successful $300k out-of-home (OOH) ad campaign.
Here's a breakdown of Brex's OOH strategy 🧵
2/ First, what are out-of-home (OOH) ads?
There are 4 major categories:
◻️ Street furniture (bus benches, phone kiosks)
◻️transit (taxis, busses, airports)
◻️place-based (arenas, shopping malls)
◻️billboards (traditional and digital)
Billboards make up 60%+ of OOH inventory.
3/ What's interesting about OOH is that if used correctly, the cost to reach 1k people (aka CPM) is cheaper than other ad options.
4/ In OOH campaigns, there is usually a trade off between:
◻️ Frequency: How often your target demo sees an ad
◻️ Reach: How many *total* people see your ad
Brex launched to a very specific demo (startup founders in SF), so it optimized for frequency:
5/ Brex spent $300k for a 3-month campaign to "dominate" its chosen area.
"Dominate" entails:
◻️ Owning 50%+ of the ad inventory in a selected region
◻️ Capture attention quickly and be omnipresent
Brex really did feel like it was "everywhere"
6/ Brex used the "Anchor and Amplification" strategy.
An ANCHOR is a big attention-grabbing ad unit that a large % of your audience sees (eg. Brex took over the platform station next to Oracle Park)
Once you establish an anchor, AMPLIFY your message around the city w/ more ads.
7/ Choosing locations
With so many options, it's important to do "market rides" (a "from-the-ground" POV)
A well-known Brex billboard is “Money Tree”. This ad space was long devalued b/c a tree obstructed it.
A market ride found it had the opportunity for a clever creative.
8/ Creative tips #1
◻️At the start of a campaign, the message should be very direct and clear ("the first corporate card for startups").
◻️ After brand is more established, you can ad some mystery ("this will catch your 'interest'") to drive curiosity
9/ Creative tips #2
◻️ OOH happens in a flash (keep copy to 7 words or less)
◻️ Color contrast is key to make ads -- often seen at a distance -- legible (stick to primary/complementary color combos)
◻️ Don't forget the CTA (brex.com/rewards)
10/ The playbook is from a Q&A I did w/ Brex's Head of OOH last year for Trends.
Brex rolled out a similar strategy for 2 other demos: ecomm (in LA) and life sciences (in Boston)
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) trained an AI slideshow maker called “Decker” on 900 templates and apparently gotten so popular that “some of its consultants are fretting about job security.”
Sorry, called “Deckster”. That excerpt was from this BI piece that also looked at McKinsey and Deloitte AI uses: businessinsider.com/consulting-ai-…
The Mckinsey chatbot is used by 70% of firm but same anonymous job board said it’s "functional enough" and best for "very low stakes issues." x.com/bearlyai/statu…
Here’s a r/consulting thread based on Computer World last year. Deckster was launched internally March 2024…some think it’s BS…some think it helps with cold start (B- quality): reddit.com/r/consulting/s…
never forget that episode of “Nathan For You” when he launched a fire detector product and tried to avoid import tariffs by turning it into a music device
One company that has been very good at navigating international food tariffs/regulations is Trader Joe’s. Built its dairy and wine businesses by finding workarounds.
If you are the person that did the un-aligned letters for the previous eBay logo, please contact the research app team. We are huge fans of how un-aligned the “e” is with the “y”.Bearly.AI
This article offers up reasons for popularity of simple font logos (mostly Sans Serif):
— Easier to standardize ads across mediums
— Improves readability (especially on mobile)
— The “brand” matters more than the logo velvetshark.com/why-do-brands-…