Billboards Make Streaming Hits Bigger than the Screen

By Craig Benner, Founder and CEO, Accretive (originally appeared on OOH Today)

Streaming platforms are in a full-blown arms race: each pouring billions into original content to hopefully produce the next cultural hit. Every week there’s a new “must-watch,” but the true test of a breakout hit isn’t just measured in app downloads or minutes watched. It’s whether a show enters the cultural bloodstream.

The dirty secret? You can’t algorithm your way into culture. You can’t out-target your way into obsession.

And that usually starts somewhere a lot less digital. It starts on a billboard.

There’s a reason OOH has always carried weight. You can’t skip it, scroll past it, or block it. It’s right there, in your face, in your city, declaring this show matters.

When a skyline lights up with a single show, or a wall wrap goes up on Sunset, people notice. They pull over, they take photos, and they share them. The conversation starts before the show does.

Unlike fleeting digital ads, a massive billboard builds anticipation that lingers in the collective imagination. That’s how real hype works.

We’ve seen it play out before:

• Netflix’s Stranger Things turned nostalgia into an experience with retro billboards that made Hawkins feel like a place you could actually go.

• HBO’s Game of Thrones didn’t run a campaign, it commanded attention with fire-breathing dragon projections and citywide activations.

• Disney+ Marvel premiers lit up Times Square with immersive OOH, transforming launches into cultural spectacles.

  
  

OOH doesn’t whisper. It doesn’t beg for clicks or trailer views – it announces itself. If you’re a streaming brand, that’s the difference between another launch and a cultural moment.

OOH Bridges the Digital and Physical Worlds

Digital, meanwhile, is drowning in itself. It’s a blur of pre-rolls, autoplay, and banner ads no one remembers seconds later. It’s a space where attention goes to die, where even the “view” metrics are padded by algorithms counting ghosts.

Audiences don’t live in one lane anymore. They move seamlessly between physical experiences and digital conversations all day. OOH is the connective tissue that bridges the two.

Whether it’s a cryptic message or a countdown clock, it doesn’t just drive people to the program, it drives conversation. Screenshots of striking OOH placements travel faster and wider than any pre-roll ever could, generating “FOMO” that reaches far beyond the physical space of the board.

In an environment where digital ads vanish almost immediately, OOH cuts through by being unignorable. You can skip a pre-roll or scroll past an ad, but you can’t miss a building wrapped in your favorite new series.

Why Streaming Needs OOH More Than Ever

The streaming market is overcrowded. With dozens of platforms and thousands of shows, it’s easy for even quality content to get lost in the shuffle. Not to mention, budgets are bloated, attention is shrinking, and audiences have tuned out of the noise.

OOH cuts through because it’s physical. It’s permanent. It feels real. It gives a show credibility like it deserves to take up space in the world, not just on your screen.

A billboard doesn’t say “please watch.” It says “you can’t miss this.”  And the distinction between asking for attention and owning it is everything.

That permanence builds trust and elevates brand equity. At the same time, OOH also drives performance, driving tune-in and strengthening campaign efficiency when paired with digital.

Every platform is chasing the same goal of getting people to talk. But real talk doesn’t start with data. It starts with presence.

The bottom line? Billboards are still the biggest cultural stage we have. They make content feel larger than life because they are larger than life. When a brand takes over a wall, a skyline, or a street corner, it doesn’t just advertise. It claims space in the culture. And that’s where hits are made. Not in the app, but in the world.