Sorry for Making You Famous
For most of my career in OOH creative, bringing up brand awareness was like bringing up astrology at a budget meeting.
Salespeople rolled their eyes. Clients nodded politely while scanning for a price point. Branding was treated like a creative indulgence. Something nice for an awards deck. Not something that generated any business activity.
Back in the day when radio used outdoor. The station manager loved it, but the higher ups thought it was too creative.
I was younger then. Still finding my voice. I believed branding mattered. I believed people remembered the brands that made them feel something.
But I was using the wrong word. I was calling it “awareness.”
Eventually, I stopped talking about awareness. I started talking about Affinity.
This Sonic franchisee understood the power in earning some of a consumer’s brain space. No promo, all spectacle.
The Methodology: Affinity to Decision
Most advertisers are obsessed with Decision advertising. They want the click. The call. The immediate sale. They bark orders at a highway full of strangers. But consumers don’t buy from someone they don’t know.
Affinity advertising is the foundation. It’s the reason Decision advertising works. The brand is already in people’s heads by the time they make that decision.
Consumers don’t visit or buy unless they care. And caring doesn’t start with a promo. It starts with a feeling. A chuckle. A pull on the heartstrings. A reflection. A new thought.
When my clients embraced Affinity, we made incredible campaigns. Ones that got people talking. Ones that got shared online. We made the brand feel bigger. More important. Maybe even cool.
https://youtu.be/Go3_hDaYJ_g?si=iRJTHmxRRtY2mC94
When Whitefish Credit Union opened its first branch in Missoula, the sole objective was to make new friends. And that’s it.
It was not to sell people a loan or a CD. Build Affinity in a way that spreads beyond the billboards.
The Fame Machine
Out-of-home is a fame machine. It’s public. It’s shared. It makes things look important just by existing.
That fame is built through Affinity. It’s how local legends get their origin stories, how people know your name before they ever see your offer. This isn’t about being seen. It’s about being felt.
Because the brands we remember aren’t the ones that barked orders at us. They’re the ones that wowed us—or made us laugh. Or made us feel like we were part of something.
So no. I’m not sorry for trying to make those first clients famous first. Not even a little.
I’m proud of every fame-building, vibe-setting, meme-worthy ad I’ve ever made. Even the ones they said were “just for awareness.”
Affinity isn’t a luxury. It’s survival.
About Todd Turner
I’m a Partner at Up To Something. We are a two-person creative studio. We specialize in out-of-home ads. We don’t just make billboards. We build Affinity. We make brands famous.