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When Alex Ewing was a kid growing up in Purcell, Oklahoma, he knew how close he was to home based on which billboards he could see out the car window. Now, as the CEO of OneScreen.ai, he\u2019s helping startups like fintech Ramp and technical recruiter Karat advertise on billboards and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think billboards are cool and help bring creativity back into marketing,\u201d Ewing told TechCrunch. \u201cThey are like canvases for marketers in a way a digital screen isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ewing joined Boston-based OneScreen last year. The company acts as a software-enabled middleman in between startups and out-of-home (OOH) advertising slots like billboards, subway ads and others. OneScreen helps startups find the right placement for their ads based on the potential customers companies want to reach paired with the demographic and historical data on the platform. The company also uses anonymized location data to help companies track how successful their campaigns are, too.<\/p>\n
OneScreen has raised $4.7 million from investors including Asymmetric Capital Partners, Techstars and Impellent Ventures, among others. The company is currently profitable and tripled its revenue last year.<\/p>\n
Billboards and other types of OOH marketing are becoming increasingly en vogue, especially for startups, Ewing said. OOH advertising spend in the U.S. is expected to reach $9.3 billion this year, according to Statista<\/a>, and predicted to reach nearly $12 billion by 2029.<\/p>\n But why would a B2B company like Ramp, want to advertise in a classic consumer manner like the exterior of city busses or inside subway cars?<\/p>\n Ewing said that companies are looking to turn their attention back to OOH advertising strategies after years of being focused on digital marketing. He added that regulations around privacy and targeted ads, and the ability for people to block digital ads, have made online advertising strategies less successful for many.<\/p>\n \u201cB2B, B2C, companies everywhere from Series A, Series B, [companies that are] really well funded or publicly traded have said, \u2018we can\u2019t invest what we\u2019ve been investing in digital anymore, the ROI isn\u2019t there,\u2019\u201d Ewing said. \u201cIt continues to get more and more expensive and it\u2019s getting less and less effective.\u201d<\/p>\n What this kind of advertising creates is brand recognition which is more effective for B2B companies than people may realize even if the majority of people who see the ad aren\u2019t likely to become customers.<\/p>\n