The Billboards are Speaking Your Language

When I was 12, tech and the internet as we know it right now was still in its infancy.

My dad bought me a Toshiba laptop for Christmas with a whole ass CD-ROM drive built in, enormous, and heavy enough to double as a doorstop. I carried it around in a cute Isaac Mizrahi bag I found at a swap meet, completely unbothered. I sat in the very front of my middle school class pretending to take notes. Really, I was transcribing- and I loved the feeling of tapping the keys. It felt musical. If the teacher’s topic was interesting? A whole orchestrated practice.

That laptop also had a VGA port. For the uninitiated, that’s the connector that let you mirror your screen onto an external display. At 12, that meant I could fire up our heavy, very expensive plasma TV and turn the living room into a theater. A screen that big felt like a broadcast. Like whatever was on it mattered.

Tech has come a long way. HP Thin Clients today weigh under 2 lbs and are the vessel to an entire world of connectivity. The only thing that hasn’t caught up? My shoulders from carrying around a laptop everyday. But I digress.

That VGA-to-plasma-TV moment stuck with me for a reason I couldn’t articulate then: putting a message on a big screen changes how people receive it. It signals importance. It commands attention. It speaks to whoever’s in the room.

Which brings me to what’s happening on every major block in Manhattan right now.

DOOH — Digital Out-of-Home advertising — is everywhere in this city.

Times Square alone has over 300 digital displays running 24 hours a day. But what’s changed isn’t the size of the screens. It’s how smart the messaging has gotten. Brands are no longer blasting one generic ad at every passerby. They’re targeting by neighborhood, by language, by time of day, by cultural moment. A screen in Washington Heights runs different creative than one in the Flatiron. A display near Koreatown speaks differently than one outside a Midtown office tower.

The city has always been multilingual. The advertising is finally catching up.

And what that shift is teaching the rest of us in sales, in content, in business development is something worth paying attention to: the most effective messages aren’t the loudest ones. They’re the most specific.

Here’s something most businesses don’t think about: the same technology powering those Times Square displays is available to you right now, at a fraction of the cost, and you don’t need an agency or a massive budget to access it.

Programmatic DOOH platforms have completely democratized outdoor advertising. What was once a channel reserved for large budgets is now accessible to small businesses, startups, and rising brands — with self-serve booking, real-time campaign management, and the ability to select exact screen locations and specify desired hours.

If your ad runs in a standard 3-minute loop in Times Square, it will appear at least 20 times per hour — and 400 times by end of day.

The real differentiator? Real-time ad-swapping capability lets campaigns dynamically change creative based on triggers like weather, traffic conditions, or crowd changes — ensuring maximum relevance and impact in ways traditional outdoor advertising simply can’t match.

Think about that for a second. Your message, on a Times Square screen, updating in real time based on what’s actually happening outside. That’s not a Fortune 500 play anymore. Campaigns can be launched in days with the ability to tailor your schedule, budget, and reach — with prices starting as low as $12 per campaign.

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to put your brand in front of Midtown Manhattan… this is it.

→ Want to talk about getting your face in Times Square or your lobby? Reply to this email and let’s set up a call.

The most underused tool in enterprise sales isn’t a product demo. It’s a shared reference point.

Whether it’s speaking a few words of a client’s language, acknowledging the neighborhood their office is in, or referencing something culturally relevant to them — rapport built on genuine common ground shortens every sales cycle. DOOH advertising figured this out: the campaigns that perform aren’t the ones with the biggest screens, they’re the ones that make someone on a crowded sidewalk feel like the message was meant for them.

That’s exactly what great sales does.

Before your next discovery call, spend three minutes on your prospect’s LinkedIn and company page. Find one real, specific thing you can connect on — a city they’re from, a shared industry background, a recent press mention. Lead with that. Not as a tactic. As a human. People buy from people who see them.

Word of the Week

Español — Alcance Reach. Range. Scope. Used in marketing: "ampliar el alcance" expand the reach. How far does your message travel? How many people does it touch?

Português — Abrangência Reach. Coverage. Comprehensiveness. Where Spanish leans on alcance — a word about distance and range — Portuguese often reaches for abrangência when the meaning is about how much something covers or encompasses. In a business context: "a abrangência da campanha" — the reach, the scope, the full sweep of a campaign. It's a bigger, broader word. It doesn't just ask how far — it asks how much. A reminder that even when two languages are close, each one has its own way of holding an idea.

More than impressions or screen time. True reach is when your message lands with the right person, in the right language, at the right moment.

That’s what the best billboard in Times Square does. That’s what the best sales conversation does. That’s what this newsletter is here to help you do.

This newsletter is built for professionals like you! People navigating Midtown, managing hybrid teams, growing businesses, and moving through this city with intention. If something in this issue made you think, gave you a tool you'll actually use, or just made your Tuesday commute a little more interesting- share it.

Forward it to a colleague. Send it to the person on your team who needs to hear it. Post it. Tag it. Drop it in the group chat.

And if you have thoughts on what's landing, what you want more of, what you'd change- hit reply. Every response gets read. This newsletter grows because of the people in it, and that includes you.

See you next Tuesday.

-Jae