In this episode of Beyond the Billboard, Greg Wise is joined by Melissa Rosenthal, co-founder of Outlever and former brand leader at ClickUp, BuzzFeed, and Cheddar. The conversation dives deep into what it really means to build a brand today and how out-of-home advertising, when done right, becomes one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s playbook.
Melissa shares the highs and lows of brand building, her battle-tested approach to OOH, and the story behind launching her new company designed to help brands take control of their narrative.
Check out the full video episode below.
Brand Is the Feeling That Sticks
Melissa makes one thing clear right from the start: brand is not a logo, tagline, or color palette. It is the impression people carry after every interaction with your company.
“I think at the end of the day, brand is the feeling, the perception,” she explained. “When you are exposed to that company, what do you think about them? That’s referrals, reviews, messaging, touchpoints, customer service. It’s the experience of that company.”
For early-stage companies, she advises skipping the splashy stuff at first. Focus on nailing the customer experience, getting great reviews, and earning real word-of-mouth. The rest will come in time.
OOH Is Measurable, Impactful, and Wildly Underused
Melissa is a longtime fan of out-of-home advertising. Her appreciation started while riding the subway in New York, reading ad after ad.
“I lived in New York for thirteen years, and all I did on the subway was read the out of home ads,” she said. “I loved them and thought they were super creative.”
At ClickUp, she ran one of the most talked-about OOH campaigns in SaaS. She chose markets carefully, targeted areas with a high density of knowledge workers, and focused on bold messaging designed to trigger curiosity. The strategy worked. It made ClickUp feel like a much larger brand and drove massive awareness in core markets.
OOH Delivers Trust and Transparency
OOH is unique in that there is no ad fraud and no hidden delivery problems. What you buy is what you get.
“It’s the one medium where there’s no like, hey, where is this actually going? Who’s actually seeing it?” Melissa said. “You can buy placements based on where people are, what offices are nearby, how they commute, and where they live.”
This gives marketers precision and peace of mind, especially when so many other channels are suffering from inflated costs and low trust.
Winning Over Leadership with Bold Bets
Melissa shared a pivotal moment from her time at ClickUp: landing a Times Square billboard during New Year’s Eve at a discount during the pandemic. The exposure was massive. The price was low. And the impact was immediate.
It helped shift internal perception. Suddenly, investors and executives saw the value in OOH.
Her advice for others? Start with a focused campaign in a few markets. Use aided and unaided brand awareness studies to measure before and after. And make sure you integrate self-reported attribution questions like “How did you hear about us?” into lead forms.
“If you haven’t been investing in brand, it’s pretty easy to see the lift,” she said. “And it helps when sales and customers start repeating what they’re seeing in market.”
Creating Your Own Channel with Outlever
After years of leading marketing inside high-growth tech companies, Melissa wanted to build something new.
Outlever is her response to a media environment that no longer works for most brands. With newsrooms shrinking and traditional media channels losing steam, Melissa saw a chance to help companies own their own stories and become their own media outlets.
“Channels are saturated and everyone’s struggling to figure out what to do,” she said. “It’s really hard. And there’s not a whole lot of innovation.”
Before launching, she spoke with 50 CMOs. Not one could name a new strategy they had not already used. That gap is what Outlever aims to fill—giving marketers a new way to build authority through relevant, ownable content that actually breaks through.
Final Thoughts: Brand Is a Long Game Worth Playing
Melissa Rosenthal’s journey is a masterclass in making bold decisions, aligning brand and business goals, and choosing the right moments to scale awareness.
- Brand starts with how people feel about you. Build that through experience first.
- Out-of-home works when it is targeted, simple, and integrated into a larger narrative.
- Internal buy-in comes from clear wins. Start focused, measure everything, and share the impact.
- Sales feedback, market research, and social sentiment create a story that numbers alone cannot.
- If you are tired of rented reach, own your media. Platforms like Outlever give brands a new way forward.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of Beyond the Billboard, episode 10 to hear more from Melissa on building standout brands and turning physical space into your strongest marketing asset. Then follow her on LinkedIn for more real-world insights from the trenches of growth marketing.