‘Everyone’s Desperate’: Consumer Startups Bet on Mobile Big Brother Billboards

When Huel, a London-based startup that sells protein bars and powdered meals, was plotting an expansion push into America earlier this year, the company’s executives knew they needed to make a splash. Huel’s $200 million in annual revenue came from online sales mostly in Europe—in the U.S., it hoped to win over customers in physical stores, too, going up against established rivals like Soylent, Koia and Owyn.

But rather than buying digital ads, which have become expensive, Huel decided on a different approach: It wrapped a box truck in glossy ads showing off Huel’s slim bottles. It parked the truck just outside Central Park on the weekend of the New York City Marathon, where more than 55,000 runners passed by after the race.

“Because we’re so small in the U.S., we wanted to do it in quite a scrappy way,” said Emma Lamont, Huel’s U.S. marketing director. “We don’t necessarily see the return on doing big Times Square billboards.” Huel has continued to do more of these billboards and has seen a “growth of new customers” from people “who saw the ads then [went] on to buy us online,” Lamont said.