by Amber Larkins, OOH Today
We recently published our annual list of the Top Women Driving Growth in Out-of-Home (OOH) for 2025. Today, we are highlighting Melissa Spiegelman, Founder, 23 Below Media Group.
Melissa is an accomplished media executive with extensive experience in Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising, specializing in media strategy, client management, and business development. Melissa plays a pivotal role in driving successful OOH campaigns by combining data-driven insights with creative storytelling. Her expertise in building strong client relationships and delivering customized media solutions has earned her a reputation for consistently exceeding client expectations and delivering measurable results.
Throughout her career, Melissa has demonstrated a deep understanding of the evolving media landscape and has led high-impact campaigns for a diverse range of brands. Her ability to navigate complex challenges and develop innovative strategies has positioned her as a leader in the OOH industry. Passionate about fostering collaboration and inspiring her team, Melissa continues to drive growth and success for both her clients and the organization.
“Like I always say, OOH is not brain surgery, we’re not saving lives, but it is cumbersome, and we need to find ways to make it easier to plan and implement. When I first started in the industry, we had at a minimum 6 months to build a recommendation, now we’re lucky if we have 2 weeks, so any way to simplify the process will help the industry grow,” Melissa said.
She fell into the OOH industry in 1994. Ogilvy and Mather had just formed the Non-Traditional Media Group. They were looking for an assistant. Melissa started as a freelancer, but had fallen in love with the OOH industry.
“When they offered me a full-time position, I jumped at the offer – and the rest is history,” Melissa said.
For Melissa, driving growth is less about the actual campaigns, and more about the relationship you establish with your clients.
“When they can trust you enough that you become a valued partner, they continue to embrace the OOH media channel,” Melissa said.
“When they can trust you enough that you become a valued partner, they continue to embrace the OOH media channel,” Melissa said.
Her most valuable resources in her career have been the relationships she has developed, including with her corgie coworker, Lizzie, who enjoys belly rubs and treats. On a more serious note, many of her current clients are either people she has worked with in the past, or who were referred to her by other clients. Sometimes when she’s facing a challenge or needs to vet a strategy, she will tap into those relationships as helpful sounding boards, or just call them to vent.
Work Challenges will not be Written on Your Tombstone
She’s faced many challenges throughout her career, but her approach is always the same. As a Brooklyner, she may curse a bit at first. Then she takes a deep breath and figures out how to tackle the problem in a way that will sit well with her. For bigger challenges that don’t need immediate response, she will go for a run to work out a strategy while exercising. This usually helps and has the added benefit of for some reason always making her run go better.
“What I have learned and what I always remind myself, is that in the grand scheme of things, this work challenge is not going to be written on my tombstone,” Melissa said.
Melissa says choosing a favorite campaign is almost like being asked to choose a favorite child. But, near to her heart is the 1995 Duracell Putterman’s Campaign. At that time cinema advertising was in its infancy, and you simply could not just run any old spot. The spot had to be brand new, and you had to prove that it had run less than 5 or 10 GRP’s on TV, which is no weight.
“We worked closely with the creative team at Ogilvy to convince the client it was worth the money to run the spot in cinema,” Melissa said. “You must remember, back then, nothing was digitized, and the production cost was almost as much as the media cost as the spot had to be copied onto every movie reel.”
Women Need to Voice Their Opinions More
Melissa thinks women face challenges not only in the OOH industry, but in corporate America in general. The OOH industry is not really male-dominated; it just happens that more men are in executive positions than women.
She’s not sure how women can get head, but has some ideas.
“Perhaps if women start caring less about what people think of them and start to speak our minds more, and voice our opinions more, we’ll see a shift in women in the C-suites,” Melissa said. “And the more women in the C-suite, the more they will promote women to higher executive levels.
A Zillow for the OOH Industry
Melissa thinks digital will continue to grow in the future and hopes that we find solutions that make it easier to implement a campaign. But she has high hopes for the industry a couple of ideas that she thinks could help get OOH a higher share of total ad spend:
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- I think there should be a Zillow for the OOH Industry. Just like if you’re looking for a house, you can go on-line and see what’s available given your parameters. We make it so hard to not necessarily buy the space, but to plan a campaign. When we’re ready to buy, we can then work with the individual OOH companies to negotiate and contract.
- I believe there is a glut of inventory. Just because there is an empty wall on a building, doesn’t mean it should have an OOH sign on it. Just because you can place a screen somewhere, shouldn’t mean that there should be advertising on that screen. This really creates additional planning time as OOH companies send their entire available inventory they think will meet the RFP requirements and then we have to take the time to weed down these availabilities to build a plan.
“Like I always say, OOH is not brain surgery, we’re not saving lives, but it is cumbersome, and we need to find ways to make it easier to plan and implement. When I first started in the industry, we had at a minimum 6 months to build a recommendation, now we’re lucky if we have 2 weeks, so any way to simplify the process will help the industry grow,” Melissa said.
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