@DudeWithSign Meets Dude With Billboard

DudeWithSign is an Instagram account that features the reallife man behind the handle Seth Phillips standing outside in various locations with a handwritten cardboard sign creating content that turns into viral imagesquotI39ve been working with the FJerry LLCamp160team for the past eight months and initially was working on original content for their Instagram when Elliot FJerry39s founder came up with the idea to stand in the street to protest something funny on a cardboard signquot Phillips explained quotWe riffed around and came up with 39Stop ReplyingAll to CompanyWide Emails39 and it took offquotOvernight the post was shared everywhere and the Fckjerry team quickly realized they had more than just a funny response A few weeks later while sitting at his desk Phillips came up with the Instagram handle DudeWithSign and the rest is historyWhat Phillips realized here is what I call the quotIRL to URL effectquot amp8212 when we make something in real life IRL that is so catchy it organically makes its way into the online world URL When you nail the IRL messaging with simplicity the online part comes easy and with big amplification metricsThe second post ever on DudeWithSign was replying IRL to a billboard for Friends This is when it first struck me to start comparing what he was doing to the impact a single billboard can have His subtle protest of the message on the Friends billboard stirred up more attention than anything else could have For example a Reddit thread could get lost in the chaos and have zero impact but standing in front of the Friends billboard with a simple message written in Sharpie reading quotSeinfeld is way better than Friendsquot made for a larger impactAs DudeWithSign Phillips is creating social content so simple and relatable that you have no choice other than to follow him to find out what he will say nextWhen DudeWithSignamp160is standing outside for quotsometimes days sometimes hours sometimes minutesquot maybe only a few hundred people walk by him in the time he is standing there but how about the additional 57 million Instagram followers seeing the post too The impact offline is amplified online by millions This is something both large and small brands can learn fromIf you look at what Phillips as dudewithsign is doing and compare it to what OUTFRONT Media does with outofhome OOH advertising it39s not all that different Reaching over 70 percent of Americans through more than 500000 outofhome IRL displays on a weekly basis is just the start Additionally through social media we and our clients receive earned impressions from social users sharing pictures and videos of the advertisements According to a 2019 Nielson study one in four Americans posted an outofhome advertisement to their Instagram feed or storyThis statistic is one of the many reasons why brands use outofhome to give people the opportunity to create social content OffWhite Pepsi and Spotify are a few brands that have created content for consumers that really do this well In 2019 Spotify reached over 500 million listeners on Instagram for New Music Friday by using a billboard in New York39s Times Square Just this week Lady Gaga announced her newest single with a billboard posted to her Instagram account and received over 750000 social engagements With one billboard in New York39s SoHo area Virgil Abloh39s fashion brand OffWhite reached over 165 million people on InstagramEven though the OOH world has been living IRL long before iPhones could take pictures and before Instagram was a platform to share moments on we are now seeing the amplification factor for ourselves No individual has achieved what DudeWithSign and these brands have accomplished and that39s why it39s so effectivequotI think it39s just a different and new way to express somethingquot Phillips said quotMaybe it39s the different elements of the account that add to the humor the fact that I keep a straight face the entire time as if it39s a serious issue or the mystery behind the shades or me actually being outside holding the sign up to real people who are just going about their dayquotquotKeep it simplequot is a phrase I throw around a ton in my office when it comes to a creative approach Our attention span as consumers is getting shorter and shorter and advertisers need to start simplifying to be effective It should almost be easier and cheaper to come up with something that will get consumers39 attention Brands should take a page out of DudeWithSign39s book and draw attention with a simple and original outofhome tacticquotI don39t know how it got so huge to be honest I definitely wasn39t expecting to get as much attention as it hasquot Phillips saidWorking in the outofhome industry it comes as no shock that his account exploded The creative strategy Phillips uses is one we think about every day Putting the right message in the right places and reaching the right people has serious amplification power No other medium receives as much earned media as outofhome According to Nielson39s study OOH generated four times more online activations per ad dollar spent compared to all other mediaGood creative has the ability to span both IRL and URL and DudeWithSign has mastered thisOUTFRONT Studios our boutique inhouse creative agency understands this better than anyone else in the industry Less is more amp8212 and when the creative is done correctly you earn not only IRL quotlikesquot but also online and social media impressionsquotWe mainly want to keep the signs funnyquot said Phillips quotI don39t want to hold a boring sign that says 39Buy this product and call blah blah for a limitedtime deal39quotquotIt can be difficult sometimesquot he said when explaining the importance of knowing your audience quotI tried a post that said 39Stop forgetting to Venmo me39 and didn39t realize that Venmo is only used in the United States I got a lot of DMs asking what Venmo is The goal is to keep it relatable and funny for everyonequotIt39s true The right message is only effective when you know and understand your audience and location This also goes for catchy outofhome ads the key is to relate the message to who you39re speaking to and where quotWhisper to the one person reading it and scream to thousands at the same timequot is a phrase Eddy Herty national creative director at OUTFRONT Studios says oftenDelivering an impactful and meaningful message to a person quotonetoonequot and quotonetoamillionquot is difficult but doable with the right creativeI asked DudeWithSign if he could put anything on a billboard what would it be His response quotStop asking where I get my cardboardquotIf you must know the cardboard he used in the first photograph he brought with him so I do not know where he got it from mine was from a street vendor in Times SquarePhoto credit at top Photo by Kiera Wood kierawood amp8212 Max Siegelman msiegelman0 left Seth Phillips dudewithsign rightDon39t stop now Read more from Outfront Media InSites on outofhome and trends and strategiesClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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@DudeWithSign Meets Dude With Billboard

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Max Siegelman

Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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@DudeWithSign Meets Dude With Billboard

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Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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