Out of Home Outdoor Advertising: Jonathon WolfeBarron of Rolling Adz

This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk Jonathan, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me today. Hey, thanks for taking some time out of your day to hang out with me for a few minutes here on the show. I sure do appreciate it. You know, Jonathan, I love telling people's stories on this show. Obviously it's called Beyond the Story, but for context, when we first get started, I like to give our listeners a little bit of backstory and where the story actually began. So let's go back to the beginning of the story, wherever the beginning is for you and bring us through that and what really brought you to present day with what you're doing and what your company does.

Sebastian Rusk

Yeah, thanks. Um, a little backstory myself is, uh, Jonathan WolfeBarron started in the trucking industry. So grew up in the family trucking, had the idea. Let's say, let's see if we can advertise on our semi trucks that drive all across the country. Um, put a business plan together and, um, ultimately found out that people didn't want to advertise in big semi-trucks, they wanted to advertise in more local trucks that stay in a local market, put the idea together, moved out from upper Michigan, this little small little town to Portland, Oregon, launched the company out here. And over the last 12 years, we've scaled this company from just advertising on little box trucks and into semi-trucks, but to all across the country and Ideally, what we do is we take brands that are looking to make a big splash in a market. We find moving vehicles that we can advertise on and match their routes up with their clients' needs and demographics. And then a little creepy thing is we're able to grab people's cell phone signals that come in contact with our vehicles, and then we can send them ads directly to their phones afterwards if they fit the demographic which our clients are looking to advertise. Wow, how do you do that? Uh, it's, uh, when we first started, we were trying to, um, it was an entry that didn't exist. So advertising a vehicle wasn't really like a method for advertising at the time. And so when we started doing these, um, we want to show the impression counts and how people see them. And by doing that, we take like a beacon that goes in the vehicles. And it would just grab cell phone signals, Wi-Fi signals, so we could be able to justify how many people came inside the viewshed of the vehicle. And by doing that, we're able to grab their advertising IDs off their phones and send them ads to their phones. Wow. They go and connect to their computers and tablets and connect to TV. We're actually able to grab all those as well and send ads there. So it's this big top of funnel, big brand awareness that just funnels down into a very, almost like sniper approach to advertising.

Jonathon WolfeBarron

And what kind of brands and advertisers do you do business with?

I've done them all. Um, last five years we worked with the four to five biggest companies in the country, um, to little, you know, healthcare clinics, law firms, um, your Amazons, T-Mobiles. Um, most of the time it's anybody that's got a nationwide presence or at least a regional presence, um, or the very minimum of statewide presence.

And so the advertising is, they're usually a call to action on the, on the ad.

Depending on the type of campaign. So like during COVID, for example, we were doing a ton of nurses. I mean, actually couldn't find nurses for a lot of their hospitals and stuff. So they're actually trying to like solicit from other people's locations. Best employees work for somebody else. And so we'd take our trucks and put QR codes on the side of them. And we had like nurses that come out and scan the QR codes, apply for the new job and get the new sign-on bonus.

Wow.

A little guerrilla tactic there for sure.

Yeah, most definitely. Well, so what this reminds me of is traditional advertising through means of billboards and newspapers and magazines and television ads. But here we are in 2025. Some would argue that traditional advertising is dead because the eyeballs are in the news feed. When you guys have obviously been able to combat that, what's been the strategy to do that? I mean, while our solution works, or is it a combination of offline and online that's really made it effective?

It's interesting because we get inundated with so many digital ads in a day that when you are out in the real world and you see something, especially that's rectangular, that's not normal in like the woods or something you don't see. it actually rectangles grab your attention. So we've been disrupting the billboard industry. So not only the digital industry, not like us, but the billboard industry doesn't like us because we get two and a half times more impressions than a stationary billboard would, because these things are in motion, people see them. And a lot of times Sebastian is the psychological element where someone sees something in the real world, they see an ad in the real world, they associate it with, it's a real product, real brand. And then when you get retargeted online, you see these ads that pop up. You've been familiarized with it. It's like going to a grocery store and you got 13 different toothpastes there. You're going to buy the crust away because you've seen their ads before. Same concept. So we get a 40 to 60% more conversions on someone that has seen an ad in the real world on our vehicles and then retarget online than an audience that hasn't been exposed to a .home ad.

So are these all large brands that are doing this or are these small businesses, midsize businesses?

Um, yeah, it's, uh, normally anybody that can spend about a hundred grand a month on advertising that has a budget allocated to that. Um, and we're not taking a whole hundred grand. We're probably just taking a 10th of that. So that way they still have a marketing presence and they can still have their Google ads, everything else going. So the full omnichannel presence.

Got it. So 10 grand a month can get a brand started doing something like this. And are you guys selective with the type of brands you work with? Is there some stuff that just does not work?

we have our own like core values within the company of what standards we want to advertise for. I mean, you can imagine like political season gets pretty intrusive in some ways. So, and we do, we're bipartisan. I've done, I've done every type of campaign you probably think of, but we have our core values. We're like, if it's going to endanger one of my drivers, we're not going to do it. And people are going to start a riot or something like by all means. And otherwise it's gotta be PC. There's nothing that's going to like harm somebody or anything like that.

But sure. Sure. And so and how so how big is the company? How many how many people do you guys got on the team and how many trucks out there are you or do you you said you outsource that and find partners and whatnot?

Yeah, so we actually own the advertising rights to over 30,000 different box trucks and advertising vehicles across the country. So we partner with them, we have a technology where we track all the vehicles, we know where they go, we know what the routes are, we can put formulated estimated impressions off of them. And then from there, we go out and are basically the matchmakers and finding advertisers that want to hit this market. Love it. Yeah, we have, good old tech team. We got some, I mean, our company's remotes are all across the country. A lot of people overseas and all across the world too.

Very cool. Very cool. So how do you guys get new business? Is it, I mean, now is it mainly referral based or do you guys hunt for new business?

I think, I think you should always be hunting for new business too. Um, but definitely referral base is great. Renewals are great. Um, there's a lot of seasonalities too, depending on the type of campaigns I work with, like people doing grand openings to hiring campaigns to just large, but large brand awareness. Uh, we do a lot of events and sporting as well. So we'll advertise in like Uber Lyft cars that are say outside the Chicago White Sox stadium or something. And we'll, we'll actually take them completely off route. We'll pay them individually just to drive around with the, with the brands wrapped and everything. So, um, anybody that's trying to really make a splash that wants something different. I mean, if you could, if you know where your ideal audience is and you could take a billboard, put it on wheels and drive right in front of them, I want you to do that. So that's what these people are doing.

How come you moved to Portland to start the company from Michigan?

I'm from upper Michigan where it's like negative 40 with windshield. And so when you're inside and you're basically just surviving half the winter, six months of the year, yeah, Portland was definitely more attractive. And I liked the, it was different 12 years ago when I moved here, but I live outside of the city and it's, it's beautiful out here. I can probably see the mountains and yeah, it's gorgeous.

Yeah, I hear great things about the Pacific Northwest. I've never been there or visited, but I hear great things about the Oregon coast. It's been on my tentative list to visit.

It's, it's, it's absolutely gorgeous here. Um, I recommend it for anybody. I mean, I've, I've been to every state in the country and this is my favorite.

Wow. Every state, huh? That's very, that's a very rare statement to hear from people. I've been to every single state. So while I'm in Miami, I'm about as far from you as I can get geographically on, on, on a map there.

You're in a beautiful area too. Just a little, uh, the humidity in the summertime is what gets me. So,

It's a little, it's, it does get a little warm that I was in Dallas last week and it was snowing. There was five feet of snow on the ground.

We have a lady on our teams from Dallas. So that she would say the other day, her son's never seen snow before. So she was all like freaking out. She's like, I'm so excited to show it to him.

So yeah, no, I was not excited about it at all. And I walked like an old lady all week long, because you know, the snow and ice will humble you real quick. And on the last night there, walking out of a bar, not drunk, kind of wish I was, getting into an Uber, didn't see a piece of ice and went flying and landed, you know, in a less than desirable spot on my hip. And yeah, just kind of laid there for a second and was like, ouch. So I'm all set with cold weather. I don't blame you for leaving Northern Michigan either. I always say snow's fun to see for about a day.

Well, and the beauty about like where Oregon is, like I can go 45 minutes. I'm in the ocean and 45 minutes the other direction. I'm in the snow.

It's like Southern California.

You know, I can go surfing and snowboarding the same day if I wanted to.

I remember discovering that when I moved to California. was that, wow, you could technically surf in the morning and snowboard in the afternoon or vice versa if you absolutely really wanted to. And how many places can you actually go and do that?

Not many, not many. Yeah, I definitely got to get out here. It's a it's beautiful. I mean, there's the first four years I was here, I felt like I was on vacation every weekend because just traveling, seeing different waterfalls and mountains and hiking trails. If you're an outdoor enthusiast, it's definitely a place to be.

You got to drive like a Mitsubishi or a Subaru out there, huh?

you know, I just stuck with Toyotas. So, but yeah, you got your whole Subaru gangs or anything like that. Yeah.

Um, the closest I've been to that is Boise, Idaho.

I'll be there this weekend.

So, okay. I was like, if I never go back to Boise again, it'll be too soon.

But, uh, I got a kid I've been mentoring since he was in sixth grade and he just turned 18 this year and he's going to college and that was part of the deals we'd pay for his college. And so, uh, he wants to go to Boise.

Oh, nice. The blue field, right? Yeah.

Yep. He's pumped. So we're, we're flying there, uh, Friday afternoon and we'll spend the weekend there and come back.

Very cool. Well, good on you for doing that. Fantastic. And, uh, always good to see, you know, your efforts and time and investment payoff. And that payoff is obviously the yes of I'm going to college, um, and you get to pay for it.

Yeah. Well, and it's, it's, I mean, being a mentor is, I mean, it's, it's awesome because you, you learn more from the, than I've learned just as much from him as he probably does for me. And it's been, it's been a really cool relationship.

How did that happen? How did that take place? The mentorship?

There was a scholarship program called Marathon Scholars. And what it was, is it was taking first generation kids that are in the United States and help them be the first kids to go to college in their family. Unfortunately, the nonprofit went out of business. They didn't have enough money for the administration fees, but they were allocating all the money towards the colleges. And so like four or five years into it, they, they pulled it and they go on bankrupt. And so I just told him, I said, Hey, I committed to doing this with him. I'll just put money in a different fund and we'll, we'll just keep this thing going. And so we did. So he's become like family to me. It's been, it's amazing.

Well, good on you for that, man.

It's been humbling, man. He's been that very rough. I mean, Portland is not a very rough city. It's as much as the news makes it out to be sometimes, but there's a couple of little areas that are a little rough and that's where he was from. And so it's been, It's been humbling in a lot of ways where, you know, you leave in tears sometimes dropping them off and you're like, man, I wish, you know, it's a, you want to do something good for him. And so it's, it's cool. Like it feels like I have a, we're as young as I am, but having a kid go to college already, it's kind of a weird feeling, but it's awesome too.

Yeah. I know that feeling. I'm 45 in my, uh, my I'm an empty nester. My daughter's been, uh, been out, gosh, she graduated in 2023. So it's been two years now. She's been gone for six years now, which is wild. I don't even know what to do with myself. Like no one needs me home for dinner. But interesting space to be in in my mid forties and check plus on have a kid raise a contributing member to society. You know, there you go.

I'm on the opposite spectrum. I got a four, two and a five month old.

So I got my hands full and that's all a jump in diapers and bottles and

Oh, it's wild, man. I get like three hours of sleep at night, I swear.

But you know what my solace was back in the day was temporary, temporary, temporary. Well, because when you're when you're at that age. It seems like forever. You're like, this is my life. Holy cow. This is nuts. Will I ever sleep? Will they ever leave me alone? Um, and they do, it gets to a point where they, they leave you alone too much and you can't even get their attention. Mine's 23. I can't even get her to come home and visit dad. I'm busy. I'm in the master's program. She works full time at Bucky's. I don't know if you've ever been in a Bucky's before. Uh, no, I've heard of it, but quite the experience, quite the, if you ever make it to one, try the brisket sandwich. Highly recommended.

All right.

Oh, they got like a beef jerky wall. Like you walk in there. You're like, what is this place besides the gas station? But they've got fricking candied nuts and a beef jerky wall. And I mean, a clothes, it looks like a, like a small, like, like remind me of a, um, of a big lots and a wawa. all in one, but like, there's like fresh meat, like there, he's in there chopping the brisket up, making sandwiches. And yeah, it's quite Bucky's is quite a, quite the experience, but yeah, it's pretty good in there too.

Then beef jerky.

And yeah, it does. I was surprised. I was like, you know what? I mean, the sandwich was like nine bucks. I was like, I mean, gas station, brisket sandwich. We're in Texas. Not bad. Not bad at all. Yeah. She's been working there for couple of years now, her and her boyfriend, she's in the master's program. So it's been great, great job when you're in the master's program because, uh, pays like 22 bucks an hour plus benefits. So, uh, I'm like, can I get a loan?

You're in college right now.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, um, we just kicked off 2025 time. We're recording this year. What are you guys the most excited about for, uh, for the new year here?

Uh, we're in, we're in growth mode. And so we've, uh, we've last year. So we've actually, we, we hit a couple of plateaus in the company truthfully. And so, or did a plateaus, but just ceilings that we hit and then kind of reflecting back and like, why are we doing this? And truthfully, a lot of it was just, it's me as the owner. Um, and so we, we went back, redeveloped some systems kind of like, you know, Dan Martell's book, buy back your time, right? Like, get the SOPs going and then just ready to scale. And so this year, yeah, we got a good growth trajectory. We've already had our best January we've had year to date. So in 12 years, so we're, yeah, things are looking good.

Very cool. Do you guys ever do like business related events? Like where you got trucks rolling around, like in San Diego, if there's a three day conference, like you got the trucks running around town and whatnot. I just popped in my head to ask you.

Oh yeah. Yeah. So we have a, we have digital trucks too. Like the ones you see in Las Vegas. Yeah. Yeah. Any, any major conferences events we'll have there. Um, I mean, I got four trucks. I'll be outside the Superbowl here next month. So it's, yeah, we can, and we can swap those out too. So we can either have like the trucks fully branded for the advertiser. I get two of those already booked. And then the other ones we can share, we can actually share spots. So you have like four advertisers and just loop the different creatives through. I can only imagine like conferences.

Yeah. Yeah. I can only imagine like the more, opportunities for moving vehicles, let's just call it, that are out there, like there's an endless supply of ideas as well as inventory as well, because it's like, well, we got more advertisers, let's add some more trucks, you know?

Yeah. Well, even like the cyber trucks right now, it was like, those are cool. Those are grabbing your attention. So now you're wrapping those things and you get five or six of those riding around the stadium or something. I mean, people go outside and they see them and they just associate your brand with that too. So you're thinking you've got a $200,000 vehicle. Now it's got your ad on it. Um, just keeps you bigger brand presence too. I see a lot of like CPG brands. A lot of times like the beverage brands and stuff will work with, they'll have a new product line. They're coming into market and they're wrapping 30 trucks. Well, it looks like now they have 30 delivery trucks going into a market. So it looks like they were just making this big brand presence and they might not even be in the market yet. So it's like a dominating force.

The illusion of it all.

Yeah, that's what it is. And just people associate with them and they're like, oh, shit, this company must be huge. They must be doing a bunch of deliveries and their minds always race. And that's what you want. You want that appeal.

Yeah. And then you've got Tesla with the semis coming out, self-driving semis. That's going to be a whole nother world for you. You got robots driving your trucks around.

Yeah. So my play there would be, we're going to try to get like digital screens on the side of them. We're not a lot of, it's against the law for us to play videos as I drive down the road, but we can actually just do static images, but you can do it as you can. Yeah. Yeah. Which I agree too. It's the true distracting as it is, let alone not having a driver in the truck, but that'd be the ultimate play there. So we're starting to make some vinyl now that's pretty, pretty elastic that we can actually stretch on and still put good displays on.

my mind's just spinning. I'm like, man, how do we get podcasts? Suck with a QR code on the side of the, on the side of it, side of a truck there, you know, start a podcast.

You know what? I, maybe I'll give you a little cameo when we're at outside the super bowl. We got an extra ad slot. I'll throw you in there.

You're the man. I love that. I love that. That's fantastic.

Well, and the cool thing is like one out of every four billboards, actually people take pictures of, and they put them online anyways. So for like a social media content and everything, it's perfect. So if we have a digital truck and podcasts suck on it, and you could throw it outside.

Yeah, that's my tagline, podcasts suck if you don't have one. And then I got the QR code on the back that says start a podcast. I'm already, I'm a walking billboard, Jonathan.

I'm gonna hire you, man. I actually got a guy in Savannah that's what he does. He just, he wears a billboard and walks around, and it's just a supplement to some of our ads, and he loves it, so.

I love it, man. Well, dude, it's been great to get to know you and, uh, I appreciate your time. Uh, fascinating business. Very, very cool. Very, very interesting. I'm intrigued. My wheels are spinning as I just shared with you as well, too. So we'll have to connect, uh, further. I know you got some podcast plans on the table for 2025. So looking forward to see how that, uh, unpacks any final thoughts for our listeners, just in general, in the world of business, entrepreneurship, advertising.

Yeah. Advertising is fun. It's a fun display. I would, I would say, just make sure you have your whole omni-channel presence, you know, from out of home people, people overlook out of home and it's actually more, way more effective than people realize. You'll probably never look at a wrapped vehicle or semi-truck again, the same. Cause you'll think, is that actually a Coca-Cola truck or is that one of John's trucks?

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Hey John, thanks again for your time, brother. I appreciate it, man. Thank you. Talk to you soon. Until next time friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, Launchlab.com Studios. We'll talk to you next time.