How a startup got to work with Snoop Dogg and put him on a billboard in Times Square in less than 48 hours

Full disclosure: we’re a tech platform called TPS Engage (now called Blindspot) specialized in making digital billboards affordable and impactful. We’re also the ones behind the infamous $GME GO BRRR billboard — full story here. And the PewDiePie ones. We knew what we were doing so we could move fast, but anyone could have done it, regardless of their marketing budget.

A real time contextual opportunity popped up

First, we had an idea. Cannabis just got legalized in the state of NY. What if we put Snoop Dogg saying “About time, NYC” on billboards in Times Square to celebrate weed being legalized in New York?

Secondly, we did some simulations on two billboards connected on our platform. Thomson Reuters and The Beast:

We had to drop the joint for legal reasons, so just went ahead with more smoke in the background and the message “About time, NYC”.

Getting to Snoop Dogg was tricky, but also easy — the idea made us stand out

Thirdly (and probably most important step), we had to find Snoop. Or his manager. Or anyone who could get him to say “yo, that’s lit, do it” (I’m paraphrasing).

And we had to do it fast, within the day. So we went on a journey — asked around, had some of our contacts reach out, but no luck. Finally, we set up an IMDB Pro (not an ad) account and found a contact there. First email had a typo and bounced back.

Corrected it and sent it out at 3:06 PM. At 4:05 PM we got an answer.

The race to put the ad up

Holy. Hell. We scattered. We quickly made the creative for the two screens and submitted it the same day. Thomson Reuters, unfortunately, couldn’t run it.

So we focused on The Beast, the humongous digital billboard above McDonald’s in Times Square. We submitted the content on that screen via our system and started waiting for approval. The longest wait of our lives. This was on Wednesday (March 31st) evening. We received approval on April 1st, not a joke.

Due to technical issues (still not a joke), the ad didn’t manage to run on April 1st, Thursday. The longest wait of our lives got extended. Normally, we would have been able to run within 24 hours.

Solutions were found and applied and one day later, Friday, April 2nd, we were live. Now it definitely wasn’t a joke.

Took a few pictures and videos, sent them over.

Snoop Dogg posted it on Instagram within 16 minutes of us sending over the content.

The post is now at over half a million views on Snoop’s Instagram alone.

Idea to execution within 2 days (including time for fixing technical errors).

ROI?

This initial cold intro let to us doing dozens of campaigns with Snoop and other people he referred us to. Check some of them out here.

Cost of running the ad?

Less than you think. About 1% of what it would have cost to get similar engagement and reach on social media — not to mention the follow on campaigns that we’re working on because of it (but more about that soon). That’s pretty good ROI for a billboard that didn’t break the bank.

We’re sharing the story to inspire other people and business to share their voice and ideas (via a billboard or not) — no matter how crazy — you might just be surprised what happens when you put them out there.

If you have a crazy idea for a digital billboard, reach out. We guarantee we’ll surprise you with how easy and affordable it is to do it.